“But I really like making you sandwiches,” I whimper. The Man says he doesn’t believe catering to him will make me happy. He wants autonomy, not a pet.
I’ve just stepped, catlike, out of the shower, in his short-term Los Angeles rental where I have been half-living since day three of our meeting, three months ago. He is in a rush to get to work — and away from me.
While brushing his teeth, he tells me it’s over. His parting words: “And wipe your face!”
Stunned, I make a circle in the foggy mirror and see a strand of white snot hanging from my nose. I am a loser.
One week later, I was gently informed by a friend that The Man had already moved on. To someone famous. A-list famous. Before I could catch my breath, it was headline news. On TV, on my phone, even in a magazine in the grocery store checkout line — there they were, “canoodling.”
I spent the rest of that week slumping around, blubbering. Unable to eat. Heart crushed. Ego obliterated. Shame spiraling after seeing myself through the harsh light of his baby blues. Every unbearable feeling I poured into an epic breakup song, smearing the ink in my notebook with tears.
When his mother emailed me a photo from our recent visit (apparently unaware of his upgrade), my sadness turned to rage.
“I’ll show him,” I thought, narrowing my eyes, steam coming out of my ears. Out loud — so the fairies, the universe, God and my best friend could hear — I proclaimed: “He will see me! He will hear me! He won’t be able to escape me!”
To get back at him — or get him back — I would have to become famous.
He was everything I’d been looking for — successful, handsome, creative. Seven years my senior, he seemed so grown-up, with his fancy watch and first-class flights. He was a man — nothing like the boys I’d dated before him. He was The Man.
I tried to make him believe I was everything he was looking for. At the start, he mentioned that he was only interested in women, not girls. I nodded in agreement, hiding beneath the cover of our palpable chemistry. Sex was the one and only area of my life where I truly felt like an adult.
On paper, I looked all right. I was playing in a band that had been newly signed to a major label. I had modeled since childhood. My dad was well known for performing one of the most iconic TV theme songs of all time. Most people imagined that I, personally, was wealthy.
But the truth was that it wasn’t my band. I was a frustrated singer-songwriter, playing bass and singing backups just to have a gig. The guys who fronted it didn’t take me seriously, wouldn’t let me write with them, and I had yet to be paid. My modeling career had slowed to a trickle back when I was in my late teens. I didn’t have a trust fund. In fact, I didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Nor did I have a car. Or a home. I had been crashing in the guest room of a friend’s house, trying to save money before an upcoming tour.
At 30 years old, I was living like a teenager. And honestly, I wanted to be saved.
It didn’t take long for my cracks to show. The Man often asked what I really wanted out of life. Diffident in owning my songwriting ambitions, I’d shrink, responding: “To be happy. To be with you.” This seemed to frustrate him.
An old-school gentleman, he was glad to pay for things, until it became apparent he had no choice.
He would often bring up that he was meant to go back overseas to his home. Soon. I’d look at him with big eyes, hoping to telepathically convey the message that he should take me with him.
One morning, during one of our “adult” conversations, The Man pushed me to confront the band about my lack of salary. I called up the band’s leader looking for answers. When the conversation turned into an argument, I finally realized that I was being taken advantage of. I quit on the spot. I thought The Man would be proud of me. Instead, he dumped me.
I found out he’d quickly begun dating one of the stars of the show that, strangely enough, my dad co-wrote the hugely popular theme song for, and I realized she was everything I was not: definitely an adult, very wealthy, A-list famous. And (at least it appeared) she had her life together.
I remembered his family asking about my dad, the song, the show, and if I’d ever met any of the stars. I had not. But now they would.
This situation, though deeply humiliating, snapped me awake. In every aspect of my life, I’d been hiding behind someone who was brave enough to be great. My dad. The Man. The guys fronting the band. I had felt inferior to them all, willing to let them lead. It’s not like my talent or confidence blossomed overnight. It’s just that... I was a woman scorned and I had nothing to lose.
Fed up with living in the shadows, I was determined to find my own light.
I got to work. I found a job hostessing in a restaurant. I started writing a song a day. I set up meetings and studio sessions, taking the LA city bus back and forth across town.
Through reading the tabloids, I saw that The Man had stayed in LA and moved into his girlfriend’s Malibu mansion. I got fired from my hostessing job for crying on the floor — definitely not an ideal greeting in the restaurant business. But when it came to my music and writing, I was showing up like never before. I was intent on making the Everest-sized climb out of Loserville.
A few months later, I answered a random telephone call from a director I knew, who asked if I’d be interested in pitching a song for a pilot he was producing. I wrote a song that piqued the interest of the show’s creator. During our meeting, he mused that if the show got picked up, maybe I could write a song for every episode. I knew better than to get too excited. This kind of talk was always too good to be true.
And then it happened.
Suddenly, I was on TV a show.
In a whirlwind of what could only be magic, I now had 10 original songs to write and record. I was even cast in a small role on the show.
Despite all of this good news, I was still stuck on The Man, and when I learned he’d gotten engaged, I took the news hard. I was reminded of the song I’d written back in that horrendous first week of heartbreak, and I dug it up and pitched it to the producers. It made them cry. Apparently, in show business this is a very good thing.
In the same magazines where I had witnessed The Man’s “loved-up” relationship unfold, buzzy articles began to appear about our show. As my excitement grew, thoughts of him shrank. Billboards went up around town. The producers invited me to sing the breakup song at our LA premiere. Now, I secretly thanked The Man for hurting me enough to write something so true.
The night of the premiere, I draped myself in a clingy, white silk gown. A black car dropped me off in front of the theater where a crowd was gathered. As I stepped onto the red carpet and into the limelight, I was blinded by flashes and boggled by the sound of my name being called from every direction at once. “Holly, over here! Holly, smile,” the photographers shouted. When I reached the end of the carpet, I turned around to survey the madness and catch my breath.
To my surprise, right there, behind me, The Man and his famous fiancee were having their own red-carpet moment. He looked uncomfortable, and his girlfriend was oblivious as she waved to the cameras. I thought that I might throw up. I tried to make eye contact and he pretended not to know me.
Never have I been more overwhelmed than in that moment. I was crushed by his refusal to meet my gaze, yet overjoyed that the declaration I’d made back on that fateful day had miraculously come to fruition. There was no doubt that he saw me. I wondered if he’d seen me all along — or something in me that I hadn’t yet seen for myself. He had been absolutely right: I would never have been happy making him sandwiches. I was destined for more.
I sang my breakup song about The Man, to The Man, and about 2,000 other people. Not even two years had passed, but I was an entirely different person — one with the awareness to finally see what The Man really was to me. Not a love lost, but a catalyst. He played a small but pivotal role in pushing me to step up, and into myself. In owning and speaking my dreams out loud, I found my power. I did not become a celebrity. But I did become the main character in my story. And that was the sweetest revenge of all.
Holly Solem is a singer-songwriter, model, actor and writer known for her work on Amazon’s original series “Hand of God,” as well as playing, touring and writing with numerous bands and artists. Over 25 of her songs have appeared in films and on television. In 2022, she began writing and posting personal essays about her life in Hollywood on her Substack, Holly Would. She is currently working on her first memoir. You can visit her on Instagram @HollyMSolem.
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