The video Malcolm Coates made for Ashleigh Lillian Kirby single-handedly revived his Hollywood career, and he was being inundated with offers for new film and music-video projects. There was one offer he figured he'd be a fool to refuse.
Ashleigh had recommended Malcolm to her best friend Wendy Winton, whom she had known since they first met at Star of the Sea College, an all-girls Catholic school in Melbourne, Australia. Wendy had moved to the States in late-2014, just after the international success of Iggy Azalea, to pursue her own dream of becoming a rapper; under the name Golightlee, Wendy worked tirelessly for over three years before securing a record deal. She finally released her debut album, "Heroine Addiction," on Valentine's Day; the first single, "Ass You Like It," became a worldwide hit.
Golightlee visited Malcolm's Los Angeles office to discuss the video for the title track to "Heroine Addiction," which would be the next single from her album. Within seconds of shaking her hand, he was overcome by her beauty. She was tiny, barely five-foot-one, but she had flawless porcelain skin, sharp green eyes, a regal upturned nose, long red hair down to her waist, and a derrière that was the largest he had ever seen on a white woman. It was all he could do to keep his erection from being visible to her.
Golightlee started the meeting by playing the title track. Malcolm wasn't too impressed by what he considered the banal lyrics: the song started off with the declaration, "Golightlee leaving all the competition in hearses / the ones barely surviving will be crying for nurses / Head bitch in charge, knocking you on your back / Can't nobody fuck with me once I'm on the attack." Malcolm thought the song was just standard hip-hop boasting, but he wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to work with this beauty.
"So, this is what I want to do," Golightlee said assertively once the track ended. "I want this video to be a shout-out to all the women that inspired me. That's what the song is aboutβI'm obsessed with all these heroines who knocked down doors and paved the way. So I want to play all these characters..."
She then gave Malcolm a piece of paper listing the four women she wanted to portray in the video: Queen Boudica, Helen Reddy, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lady Godiva. Malcolm raised an eyebrow when he came to the last name.
"Look, I get all the other ones, but Lady Godiva? You want to be naked in the video?"
"What, you don't think I can pull it off?" she replied with a hint of sarcasm.
"Well, no, it's not that. It's just..."