Chapter 18 In an la minute spot, Aired April 24, 2016
Eighteen
Stefan: Ryan! Ryan, Stefan from LA Minute. Are you enjoying a night out on the town after winning your trial?
[Unlike in Seattle, Ryan turns to him and smiles widely.]
Ryan: Oh, hi! Yeah, I’m taking a night out with the girls. No boys allowed tonight! Or maybe ever.
Stefan: Have you had any contact with Justin since the trial?
Ryan: No, but I wish him well.
Stefan: What do you have to say to people who sided with Justin in his betrayal of you?
Ryan: I’m not bothered. I’m focusing on myself and my career and moving forward from all this. I guess I’d say: Get a life, honestly! I mean that with love. I decided to get one myself.
Stefan: What’s next for you? Are you going to write a song about Justin?
[Ryan winks.]
Ryan: I guess you’ll have to find out, Stefan!
Mari
I was with her that night at 1Oak. We were leaving the club because she was having a panic attack.
She had been stressed all evening while we were getting ready.
“We don’t have to go out,” I had told her. “Let’s just stay home, okay? We can watch House Hunters. Just you, me, and Kylie.”
Kylie had brought homemade brownies to our last hangout, and I was starting to warm up to her in spite of myself.
But Ryan said, “No, no—if I don’t show my face, they’ll say I’m hiding. I have to go out, and I have to have fun.”
So we did. But we did not have fun.
Teen Star Magazine, June 2016
Ryan’s Revenge?
Pop icon Ryan Holding strutted down Santa Monica Pier Saturday afternoon in a barely there gingham shorts and crop-top set.
The “Count Your Days” singer laughed with friends as she won a Skee-Ball game and celebrated her recent court victory over Justin William Ayers, who claimed to have leaked three of her tracks at her own request.
Ryan seemed to be showing off the win as she paraded around town with model-turned-popstar Kylie Cameron and BFF Mari Stevens.
Better luck next time, Justin!
Jasmine
It was . . . tough to see Ryan’s mood after the trial concluded.
I was back in the studio with her and Wilder the following week, at Ryan’s request, and there was a very weird feeling there.
Everyone was so muted. Ryan and Wilder were sitting far apart from each other, and I wondered if something had happened between them.
Both of them were keeping their heads down.
We usually started with a bit of jamming to warm up, she and I humming anything that came to mind, but as soon as Ryan put her fingers to the fretboard and started playing a few chords, she stopped and let both arms hang over the banjo.
“Do you think people like my music?” she said.
“Of course they do,” I told her.
“I think they used to,” Ryan answered. “But do they like the music anymore, or do they like it just because I made it? Do they like me, or do they like the idea of Ryan Holding, the pop star?”
“Does it matter?” Wilder said.
I swear I saw this shadow pass over Ryan’s face. She said, “It matters to me.”
“Do you need them to like you?” I asked, trying to get over whatever weird energy the two of them were putting off. “Did you start writing music because you wanted to draw a crowd?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to talk her around it; sometimes people just want to vent. But she gave a sigh and said, “No.”
“Why did you start writing music?” I asked.
She ran her finger along the edge of the banjo drum. “I don’t know. Because I felt like I had to. Because I got these ideas, and they needed somewhere to go.”
“What’s changed?” I asked.
“At first—” She shook her head. “At first I felt like a water tower. Like all these songs were building above my head, and I had to channel them out or I would burst. Then I felt more like a well, like one of those old ones with the pump, you know? My grandpa used to have one of those on his farm in Kentucky, I remember from when I was little. It took more work to get them out, but there was still plenty down there, and I could pull them up whenever I needed to.”
The three of us were silent for a moment.
It was Wilder who spoke first. “And now?” he said.
“And now I feel like an empty barrel,” Ryan said quietly. “There’s nothing in there. And I don’t know what to do.”
I sat back in my chair and allowed her a minute or two. Then I said, as gently as I could, “You’ve been through a lot of stress, Ryan. It’s just writer’s block, okay? You’re more than your music. You need to give it time.”
Skip
Jas talked to me after that first studio session. I called Ryan into my office and I said, “You’re fired.”
And she said, “What the hell?”
I said, “I’m temporarily firing you. Take a few months. Let that feeling come back to you.”
She looked at me with these dead sort of eyes. It’s hard on an artist—musicians, especially. You know, you put your whole identity into your work, and then when your brain won’t cooperate, you feel broken. I would’ve given my other artists some tough love, but the kid had been through enough.
“What if it doesn’t come back?” she asked.
All right, so I couldn’t resist razzing her a little bit. I said, “Then you already have enough money to retire decades early. Who cares? You should be doing it because you love it.”
“Are you saying I’m already washed up?” She was glaring at me, but I could see a little bit of her old self coming back.
“If I was, I’d be a hypocrite, wouldn’t I?” I said. “The washed-up old producer that I am.”
Ryan rolled her eyes. “I can’t make any promises.”
“You don’t need to,” I said. “Your head’s big enough to be a water tower again. Just gotta let it refill.”
Finally, she cracked a grin.
Kylie
I was glad to be able to spend more time with Ryan after the trial.
She seemed really down, that summer of 2016.
I’d take her shopping, drive her up to my family’s lake house in Tahoe, go to the pier with her.
I picked up a lot of the slack because Mari was working overtime to finish classes and manage press coverage from the end of the trial.
She and I got closer, too, I’d like to think.
We don’t talk so much anymore, but back then, it was Ryan who held us all together.
Mari was always like, “Keep the magazines away from her, keep her off her phone.” And I did my best. But it was everywhere, you know? Even in the rustic little shops up at the lake, there would be tabloids with pictures of her. And it seemed to send her into a funk every time.
There was one particular criticism that stuck with her around that time.
It was something I think Tyler Michaels first said, and then a bunch of other publications ran with it—something about Ryan being a spider.
Like she was just trying to trap you in her web.
Helladonna was dating Tyler by then, and she released some song about the “Itsy Bitchy Spider” that had everyone talking.
It was on the radio, in the mall, in commercials—like you could not get away from this snarky, catchy-ass song.
I’m sorry, but yeah, it was catchy. That was part of the problem.
I’d get it in my head, and then I’d have to stop myself from humming it around Ryan.
There was one day when we were up at the lake sunbathing on my parents’ dock, and everything was quiet and beautiful. I was like, finally. Mari would be proud of me.
Then this stupid boat zooms by blasting “Itsy Bitchy Spider” at full volume.
Ryan sat up in one motion and ripped her sunglasses off and literally threw these Versace frames into Lake Tahoe.
“Fuck!” she yelled.
I had to start laughing. I’d never heard her swear like that.
I was like, “Yes, let it out, girl!”
She stood up. She said, “They want a spider, huh? They all fucking want a spider? I’ll give them a spider.”
I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. I’m terrified of spiders. But I told her I’d support her anyway.
Tatiana
It was the Met Gala of 2017, yes. Ryan approached me with this idea, and I said, my girl, you are crazy. I do not pretend to understand what this is supposed to be. But for you, I will make it happen, and I will make it good.
The look was a deceptively simple one. Big black ball gown, structured strapless bodice with boned ribbing, big bustle, swaths of dark silk all slippery and shining and draped over her. Morticia Addams makeup, back to the red lip, bright and bloody.
But the cape was my crowning achievement, Ms. James, oh yes.
I could not find fabric that behaved the way I wanted, so you know what?
We made it ourselves. Me and the seamstresses working day and night, knotting this shimmery gossamer thread by hand into a 180-inch cape that floated over her shoulders and the red carpet.
Hollywood Report Magazine, May 2017
The fangs were out for Ryan Holding at Monday’s Met Gala, with an ensemble developed by fashion giant Tatiana DeGroode that barked as loud as it bit.
Holding wowed on the red carpet in a black Jean Paul Gaultier gown and classic Louboutins that flashed a matching red to her femme fatale pout.
The look was completed with a spidery silken cape that clasped at her throat and gave her the air of a vampiress about to strike.
It’s been a quiet year in music for the singer of Diatribe fame, who released one independent single in January, “Go Home,” which is rumored to directly reference the star’s recent legal difficulties and fallout with Justin William Ayers.
Holding notably attended the Gala alone and set herself apart from her contemporaries who graced the promenade.
Perhaps she is taking her role as a black widow to heart.