The N-Dubz and X Factor star\u2019s career went into freefall after an elaborate sting by the Sun on Sunday, and she\u2019s still campaigning for tougher press regulation. But will it work? <\/p>\n
Late last year, Tulisa Contostavlos took a good look at her life. Her relationship had come to an end and she found herself in her late 30s (she\u2019s 38 now), wondering what next. \u201cI started thinking about all the things I\u2019d never done,\u201d she says. At 20, life had got weird \u2013 Contostavlos was in the successful hip-hop group N-Dubz and became an adult just as the fame and money started coming in. By 24, she was a judge on the Saturday night TV show X Factor. If that hadn\u2019t happened, she thinks she might have become an archaeologist \u2013 she\u2019s obsessed with ancient history. And so last year she went travelling, to Egypt to see the pyramids, and to Peru to visit Machu Picchu.<\/p>\n
There were other, bigger changes. She gave up smoking and started having therapy for the first time. Contostavlos sat down, she says, and \u201cI wrote a list of what my \u2018greatest self\u2019 looked like \u2013 where she\u2019d go, how she thought, how she felt, the things she would do. I started implementing every single thing on that list and I found through doing that, you just become her \u2013 it is actually that simple. It just takes effort and discipline.\u201d Her greatest self, she says, \u201cis a person of action, and she turns lemons into lemon cake\u201d. It got her thinking about the criminal trial that left her career in freefall. \u201cI was like, right, let\u2019s try to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/4e524c8d6fd28a5f1c443884133a775d4172a52e\/419_0_9399_7520\/master\/9399.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=6786f9928a20e0b0f6562a437af0fafb\" "\\"\u2018This")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"