Not so Modest Management
Modest Management, are one of the most well known music management firms in the industry. They have managed extremely notable names such as One Direction, Little Mix, Rebecca Ferguson, Katie Waisell and many others. They currently manage Niall Horan, Olly Murs and Mae Muller, but are they good managers? Do they work for the clients or do the clients work for them? Are they impartial with the advice they offer, or are they in the hands of the major labels, and as such working for the labels’ best interests instead of the artists they supposedly represent?
We first heard of Modest Management around 2011 when they signed One Direction from the X Factor. Fans began to notice how overworked the boys of One Direction were and began digging into the management company who was working them so hard and what we’ve found out since then has been eye-opening to say the least and disturbing in the extreme.
Modest Mangement was founded by Richard Griffiths and Harry Magee in 2004 after their first management company didn’t work out. It was founded by Griffiths and Magee and they had previously worked for Sony before being fired and starting their own management company up. They worked hard and worked to break artists from obscurity into the music industry, striking gold when they were brought on board the X Factor to manage the talent.
Griffiths, himself, states that he has a close personal friendship with Simon Cowell and was one of the people who encouraged him to branch out into the X Factor. He was also one of the people who helped Cowell set up the now defunct arm of Syco music, aptly named as you’ll find out shortly. Both Griffiths and Magee have had a hand in managing the talent through the X Factor and we’ve recently found out from Offstage and former X Factor contestants that the management contract for Modest was signed in the early stages of the show, alongside the talent contracts, label contracts among others.
The contracts were presented to contestants and they were given a choice of three legal representatives by Modest/ Freemantle/ Syco and were told to chose from the three after a session with each. Each legal team presented information to the contestants, but one has to ask, when all of the legal teams were chosen by Modest et al, how impartial could the legal advice be? This came to light during the Offstage Podcast created by Chi Chi Inzundu from the BBC where we found out that members of the X Factor production team were staying in the house with contestants and feeding information they discovered back to the press offices and Modest.
There was a story in 2010 where one member of the X Factor finalists was sent home because two of the housemates were having sexual relations and were found out. Louis Tomlinson of One Direction, disappeared from the house in either week 5 or week 6 and although this was newsworthy at the time, the articles have since vanished, but as someone who watched this season of the X Factor I remember this vividly.
Modest were also present during video diaries and we saw how close Harry and Louis were becoming each week, but although this was frowned upon and they were moved seats from time to time it mainly was left alone. What happened after X Factor though showed the depths that Modest were willing to go to, ensuring that the boys didn’t get to sit together, then didn’t get to talk in public or during interviews and then were stopped from interacting with each other.
Harry actually tweeted out, “I’d advise them not to whisper to each other until they’re off stage.” This is just one facet of the abuse the One Direction boys faced. There were interviews where the questions were so inappropriate that it was disgusting- interviews where the boys were made to cut things out. One interview in particular comes to mind where Harry said "boyfriend"when they were asked about dating and Louis joked that they all had boyfriends to which the interview, management and Louis confirmed that it’d have to come out of the recording. Another interview that sticks in my mind showing the abuse was when during One D day 2013 Harry went to pass Louis his bubble tea and Louis reached out to take it. It was innocent and every single member of the boys reacted in some way to something that no one could hear. Louis withdrew his hands, Liam put his hands up, Harry turned and frowned off camera, Niall covered his ears and Zayn stepped back in shock. Their instinctive reactions showed that someone screamed at them through their earpieces and caused that visible reaction on camera.
Another facet of the abuse that the One Direction boys suffered while under Modest was that they were constantly locked in their hotel rooms. Liam has spoken about this at length and detailed how this led to his alcohol addiction in some ways. It has also been stated by Jedward that security for Modest acts would be hired and made to report back to Modest about any infractions on their rules as though they were babysitting children who needed punishing. Any infractions during interviews, during performances and during their down time would be reported and the boys would be reprimanded or punished in some way.
Further to that Liam spoke out during the Paul brothers’ podcast about being slammed against a wall and threatening the person who’d done this. We had heard from Rebecca Ferguson the year before in a series of tweets that a boyband member spoke to her about being physically assaulted by a member of his management team when trying to challenge decisions and was told that because they made as much money as they did, they were to do as they were told. This ties in with what Liam said on the podcast about the abuse of management and what he also said about some of his time in the band being toxic because they were physically assaulted by management if they didn’t toe the line and behave.
Another fact of life for artists was revealed by Rebecca Ferguson has been very open about the abusive practices of Modest Management: merely giving her a can of coke after she collapsed three times and then making her do an interview; forcing her to fly against doctors orders; trying to make her work when she’d had a miscarriage and she was worked so hard she barely saw her children. She also stated that when she said she wanted to leave they would withhold and ignore phone calls from her children and staff working with her were instructed to ruin her personal relationships.
Jedward alleged that Modest would isolate clients from their family and friends and would give clients friends in the industry who would only pretend to have their back, but would in fact screw them over at any opportunity. The isolation of clients from family tracks because Mark Boardman, a freelance journalist who knew and worked with the One Direction boys, stated that Johanna (Louis mum) would contact him to see if he knew where in the world Louis was and would ask Mark for Louis' schedule.
Katie Waisell has also spoken out at length about how she was sexually assaulted and was made to continue to work with her abuser. Lucy Spraggan was raped while on the X Factor and the next day Modest were at her door asking whether she would be performing on the live shows the following day. Cher Lloyd spoke out about how they wanted to her undertake PR stunts to increase her fame, even though she was married at the time and Rebecca has spoked out at the Woman and Equities Committee 2024 recently about how NDAs are used to silence victims of sexual assault and abuse by those in the music industry.
Another facet of Modest/ Sony/ Syco is the closeting that they inflicted on Union J member George Shelley. George was a young boy at the time he appeared on the X Factor with his bandmates in Union J. Jaymi Hensley was permitted to come out on the show and was encouraged in fact by the production team, management and Syco to come out. He spoke out about Larry (Harry and Louis’ ship name), stating that it obviously wasn’t true and that he was encouraged to come out, yet we found out later that his own bandmate was forbidden from coming out because two gay members of a boyband was one too many.
George spoke of how he was conditioned to fear coming out and I’ll explore this wording in another article, but it shows that closeting is and was part of the Modest/ Sony/ Syco modus operandi and that accounts of this should not be discredited as antiquated or outdated because this was in 2012, two years after One Direction had been on X Factor.
Another member of One Direction who suffered greatly at the hands of Modest Management was Zayn Malik. He was given the brand of the “quiet and mysterious one” and was treated horrifically by the press, by certain interviewers and by people like airport security over the years. He was racially abused on multiple occasions and his ideas for the band's musical direction were squashed time and again. Zayn himself wrote over 30 songs, none of which were ever utilised; how demoralising must that have been? Zayn stated after leaving the band that he ended up with an eating disorder because it was one of the only things he could control in his life. All of the boys were subjected to horrendous working conditions: writing, recording and touring simultaneously, while promoting, performing, recording videos and being locked in hotel rooms. He also stated that what was happening within the band, their hectic schedule and the pace of their life badly affected his eating habits.
Modest Management have a lot of abuses] to answer for, yet are still out there now with 34 employees, still working with Niall Horan even though he’s suffered abuse at their hands on multiple occasions. Niall, however has never spoken badly in public about his management company, we saw them turning down his microphone in the One Direction days, and recently saw him being told to button his shirt up by his manager/ handler while mid-interview. It is as though artists to Modest are treated as children and in fact Richard Griffiths has stated that managers do the unthinkable for the ungrateful and that artists should be thanking management for what they do.
Griffiths has also stated that one of his greatest joys is breaking new talent and one has to wonder which way he means it. Does he mean breaking them into the music industry and helping them succeed, or like Modest said about Rebecca Ferguson, “She’s good isn’t she: we just need to break her spirit?”
It wouldn’t be surprising to learn it’s the latter Griffiths means because they have gotten away with multiple abuses against multiple people, broken trust and broken artists down. They changed Louis Tomlinson before our very eyes from the flamboyant, sweet boy he was at first into something more fitting to their idea of what was acceptable and even now Louis still rarely shows that soft centre. It’s not surprising he protects his softness with a roughness and a “chavvy” attitude because Modest showed him, using media training with Gordon Smart and hypnotherapy with Paul McKenna as tools, that the soft sweet centre would sink the entire One Direction ship, before it even left the port (according to Gordon Smart himself.)
Music fans don’t often dig as deep into management companies as Directioners have done and continue to do but the abuses are there: it’s clear to see and Modest are great at protecting themselves and the labels, but how impartial could they have been when one of the directors of the company helped set up the record label that the acts were signed to? Aren’t management companies supposed to be the bridge between the artist and the label, working for the benefit of the artists? When you have a man like Griffiths, however who’s worked with Rob Stringer, CEO of Sony, Simon Cowell and counts Scooter Braun as a close friend, then you know that your favourite singer, especially if that singer is gay, a person of colour, or female is in for a rough road.
Music should be universally enjoyed, but creators should be treated fairly and management companies should protect their artists not cause them to have eating disorders, cover up sexual assault, facilitate alcohol addiction, medically abuse artists or closet people. Modest needs to be held accountable for all their mistreatment and abuses but until something changes these things keep on happening and fans are helpless to stop them.
You can help though. Every voice raised is a voice that they can’t silence. Every person sharing this information, following Katie Waisell, Rebecca Ferguson and others helps get the word out there, so share this.Work with other fans, start petitions and expose this and other abuses that you see.
One voice is small, but many are strong and with all of us uniting behind those who’ve been abused then they can’t stop us. We are unstoppable if we’re united, weak if we’re divided and it’s time for the divisions to stop. The music industry needs a Me Too movement and we can help, so let’s work together and let Modest really know the power we hold because they should fear us. We are the ones with the power, not them. It’s high time they knew that.
Behind the Curtains
Sources:
https://www.distractify.com/p/5sos-modest-management
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9441609/amp/Rebecca-Ferguson-demands-overhaul-music-industry-Jedward-launch-tirade-against-X-Factor.html
https://celebmagazine.com/louis-tomlinson-responds-jedward-slams-one-directions-management/
https://filmdaily.co/music/modest-management/
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After reading this article I am amazed that Modest Management are so behind the times . The public are not stupid . They should be held accountable for their actions towards their artists which amount to bullying abuse and single mindedness- time for some answers