It was the summer time of 2000, and Leigh Limon was working late on the set of Southlander, an impartial film her boyfriend, the musician Beck Hansen, had a supporting position in. The movie adopted the trials of a struggling keyboardist who will get maintain of a magical synthesizer, solely to lose it and embark on a picaresque journey to get it again. Beck was taking part in a shabby, malnourished musician dwelling in a shack who acts as an emissary of a bizarre celeb cult. The character was referred to as “Bek” — the title Beck had been given at start — and could be like a model of him that had by no means gotten well-known.
The filmmakers, their pals Ross Harris and Steve Hanft, had employed Leigh to do styling for the image. Beck had been touring, and he or she hadn’t seen him in weeks. He was coming again to Los Angeles that evening, flying in from Japan. As she was ending her work, she received a name. “Come house,” Beck stated, sounding grave. “I need to speak to you.” Anxious, she instructed Harris and Hanft she needed to go and headed to the Silver Lake house Beck owned they usually lived in collectively, driving the Volvo Beck let her use. It was darkish when she reached the low-slung, wide-set home.
A bunch of strangers have been ready for her in the lounge. A few of them have been in fits; others have been in uniforms she acknowledged from her restricted data of the Church of Scientology: They have been from the Sea Org, the church’s elite non secular order.
Beck was there, too. He wasn’t her.
One of many strangers, a blonde with an intense face and a darkish go well with, stepped ahead. She knowledgeable Leigh she was Beck’s authorized consultant and could be accompanying them to the eating room for a dialog. Terrified, Leigh adopted them. Beck then turned to face her. He appeared modified. Of their 9 years collectively, Leigh had typically considered Beck as a form of charming insectoid alien in a human go well with studying Earth customs. Now she noticed Anakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vader.
“How may you?” Beck stated flatly. “How may you do all of that?”
She stated she didn’t know what he was speaking about. He replied that he was performed along with her. They have been over. And he’d higher not see her on the Southlander set.
With Leigh Limon in 1996.
Photograph: Kevin.Mazur/WireImage
For the primary decade of his profession, Beck was a pressure to be reckoned with within the music {industry}. He sang songs that didn’t fairly make sense in plain English however have been one way or the other pressing and simple to those that listened to them. He went platinum a number of occasions over and bought out arenas all over the world. His music was defiant and bombastic, and critics and followers alike regarded him as a form of pop messiah.
Then, across the flip of the millennium, one thing modified. Nobody — not the press, not his followers, not even his pals — knew what had occurred. However it was clear one thing had. He destroyed the favored official message board the place his followers gathered. His interviews grew imprecise and combative. His outdated pals didn’t see him anymore, and he abruptly broke up with Leigh. He maintained an everyday output of music — in September, he launched his first album in seven years, Experience Lonesome — nevertheless it turned inward dealing with and morose, then repetitive.
Over the previous 4 years, I spoke to dozens of individuals in Beck and Leigh’s circle within the close to decade they have been collectively. (Beck didn’t reply to requests for remark; Leigh declined to be interviewed, however I spoke with individuals near her pondering.) The shift in his life and music grew to become most obvious, they instructed me, when Beck launched Sea Change, a heartbreaking and deeply earnest interior chronicle of a breakup. Journalists recognized the supply of the album as Beck’s falling out with Leigh, and critics revered the LP as proof Beck had grown up as a songwriter, abandoning the outdated doggerel. For Leigh and others, the album was the story of how they misplaced Beck.
She may see him, however he couldn’t see her.
He was a thin, shabby younger man working within the present store on the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Artwork. She was visiting the museum, one in all her common haunts, on a day in 1991. And she or he couldn’t cease him.
He appeared to be about her age — late teenagers, early 20s — and he regarded like shit. She stared in delicate amazement. Together with his unkempt hair and ragamuffin clothes — was {that a} rope holding up his pants? — he reminded her of Huckleberry Finn or these cultists she used to see round Southern California when she was a child, the Zendik Farm collective. They have been a handful of households who have been making an attempt to reside for artwork and nature; they invented their very own musical devices, printed their very own poetry, and lived in huts fabricated from rubbish; even the youngsters appeared historical. This man behind the gift-shop counter had that look.
Leigh had at all times favored weirdos. In highschool, she by no means went for the macho guys. Her first crush was on the cherubic lead youngster actor in Meatballs, the one who requires assistance from camp counselor Invoice Murray to study self-respect. She regarded for the form of man whose true value solely she may see. Guys with untapped potential, even a contact of femininity.
A short while after that museum go to, Leigh went to Al’s Bar, a punk membership in Downtown L.A. Her type at the moment was angular, classic Melancholy-era skilled girls’s attire. On that evening, she regarded like a Rosalind Russell character in a ’30s screwball comedy, misplaced in a sea of mohawks and piercings. She noticed her buddy Ed Smith. They talked for some time. Then Leigh observed a thin man clad in a ratty Daniel Johnston T-shirt, his hair a feral mess. His pants have been being held up by a rope. She discovered him intriguing and went over to introduce herself. He stated his title was Beck. He was nonetheless a no person within the music world, an acoustic folkster who performed open mics and hopped onstage unannounced earlier than different bands did their units.
The 2 of them spent the remainder of the evening pressed collectively within the crowded bar, shouting at one another to be heard over the sound of drunk youth. Beck and Leigh have been brimming over with phrases — not about their very own lives however about tradition: outdated motion pictures, avant-garde novels, French poetry, summary work, and the infinite sorts of music. Later, she would put it collectively and notice he was the weird-looking man from the museum present store; she wouldn’t point out it to him.
The primary time Beck broke up with Leigh took place two months after they began courting in 1991. He referred to as her on the telephone.
“I simply don’t assume you want me,” Beck instructed her.
He didn’t say what that meant, precisely, however Leigh inferred that he was upset they hadn’t had intercourse but.
“No!” Leigh pleaded. “I such as you a lot!”
Leigh discovered his frustration odd — he’d by no means pressured or bullied her for intercourse. They only hadn’t had it. And now he appeared unhappy, even perhaps indignant about it.
Intercourse wasn’t that thrilling for Leigh. She was younger; she’d by no means felt completely comfy in her physique. She’d had intercourse, however each time it felt prefer it was taking place to another person. Intercourse was an indication in a overseas language, illegible to her.
Beck hadn’t introduced it up, and Leigh had been fantastic with that. Possibly it was bizarre, however that was what she favored about Beck: the way in which he appeared not simply out of step however in a syncopated counter-rhythm with everybody round him. There was one thing about him Leigh felt kinship to. She merely needed to dig by means of piles of classic clothes, learn obscure books, and spend time along with her bizarre boyfriend. However he needed one thing extra. There was nothing she may do to persuade him. He hung up on her. He had a behavior of ending disagreements abruptly like that.
Three weeks glided by. At first, Leigh was indignant and ashamed. However as time went on, she couldn’t cease occupied with Beck. She felt a stronger reference to him than she’d had with anybody earlier than. She had imagined chilling out with him indefinitely. She needed that so badly. She figured she may muster up the gumption for some intercourse. So, maybe towards her higher judgment, she referred to as him. He stated he was keen to offer it one other shot.
“Let’s go swimming,” he stated.
“The place?” she requested.
“There’s a pool at my mother’s constructing,” he replied.
An odd proposal. However he was an odd man. They met on the Koreatown duplex the place his mom, Bibbe Hansen, and his stepfather, Sean Carrillo, have been dwelling on the time. Beck led Leigh down an limitless hallway till they reached the unit Bibbe and Carrillo rented. He had a key, they usually let themselves in. The place was messy and run-down, and there have been large smoke stains on the ceiling. On the living-room desk was an enormous bowl full of cigarette butts, which Beck stated was for an artwork venture. Leigh figured these absent adults knew the way to social gathering. She had grown up within the suburbs with nature throughout her. The scene within the duplex felt like the rationale she didn’t a lot look after metropolis dwelling.
As soon as the 2 had became their bathing fits, they went swimming within the barely tended pool within the complicated’s courtyard. It was calming. Quickly they have been laughing and splashing collectively. Leigh was reminded that she actually favored this man, even when he baffled her. Underwater, they blinked at one another by means of the dreamy haze of the chlorine, smiling.
A couple of days later, they’d intercourse for the primary time at Leigh’s residence. As she’d predicted, she principally dissociated by means of the method. It wasn’t unhealthy, however she felt extra like a witness than a participant. Not having intercourse had appeared to be a deal-breaker for Beck simply weeks earlier than. Leigh was anticipating him to be extra within the second. However he, too, appeared vacant and dissociated. Their our bodies have been united whereas their minds wandered away.
Shortly after that, Leigh and Beck went to a hip hangout in Little Tokyo referred to as Troy Café. Beck knowledgeable Leigh that Bibbe and Carrillo owned and ran the place. They’d began it up the earlier yr. Whereas there, Leigh met Bibbe. She struck Leigh as an uncommon character, carrying sun shades indoors tucked beneath her lengthy auburn hair. They talked a bit. Leigh received the sense that Bibbe was — like Leigh herself — misplaced in Los Angeles. She appeared like a New Yorker, a stranger in an odd land. As Beck and Leigh fell additional in love, Leigh began to see Bibbe extra. She by no means noticed Beck’s organic father. Beck rarely talked about his childhood or his emotions. Early on of their relationship, he talked about he had grown up in Scientology however was out of the church. She was fantastic with that. They’d make enjoyable of Scientology if it got here up in dialog.
Bibbe Hansen met Beck’s father, David Campbell, at one in all her first Dianetics conferences in Los Angeles. A number of years her senior, Campbell was born in Toronto and raised in varied locations within the northern U.S.; he had transformed to the Church of Scientology within the ’60s and had studied on the Manhattan Faculty of Music earlier than making his approach west. Within the fall of 1969, Bibbe grew to become pregnant with Bek.
Campbell was a classically educated violist, and when Bek was a child, he’d deliver his son alongside when he went busking round Los Angeles, jamming with a guitar-playing Scientologist buddy for money to pay for his or her church programs. Finally, Campbell began to search out alternatives in present enterprise, taking part in viola on Carole King’s hit album Tapestry. His success gave them privileged standing throughout the church. Famousness was subsequent to holiness. The household moved to a spot in Hollywood, a block north of Sundown Boulevard and half a block away from the brand new Celeb Centre.
In keeping with individuals who grew shut with him later, in addition to his personal mom, his dad and mom hardly ever tended to him. Campbell was away working, and Bibbe was typically out socializing. When Bek was about 5, he visited his paternal grandparents, who lived within the Overland Park suburb of Kansas Metropolis. His grandfather D. Warren Campbell was a Presbyterian minister. The whole lot was totally different in his grandparents’ home. When he returned to L.A., Bek got here to know that his nuclear household was uncommon. He was able to ask his mom some onerous questions: “How come you don’t moist down my hair each morning and half it on the facet, like Grandma? How come you don’t bake desserts so I can take them to high school in my lunch? How come you don’t make me wash my palms on a regular basis, like different moms do?”
As Bibbe would later recall in a letter printed in a fanzine, she sat her son down and delivered a maternal manifesto. “Bek, the rationale I don’t do all these items is as a result of I’m not like Grandma and I’m not like different moms,” she instructed him. She would by no means bake cookies for him, or desserts, or be certain his hair was parted and his palms washed — “It’s not going to occur,” she stated. However, she stated, it wasn’t such a nasty deal: “As a result of I additionally won’t ever attempt to flip you right into a robotic, make you put on shit you don’t need to, make you do methods like some form of performing canine, or attempt to minimize your dick off each time you flip round.”
Bibbe was by no means a religious, and even significantly engaged, member of the Church of Scientology. However her manifesto to Bek may have come immediately from the church’s teachings. L. Ron Hubbard held that every one youngsters are merely “adults in small our bodies,” in response to many who knew him, and his teachings actually accorded with that concept. He each praised and punished youngsters as if they have been grown-ups. They didn’t deserve particular safety. They have been chargeable for their very own security.
Left to his personal gadgets, Bek found out the way to cook dinner hamburgers on the range for himself and his youthful brother, Channing. In some unspecified time in the future, to his father’s delight, he requested for his first acoustic guitar. He by no means requested Campbell for assist in studying the way to play. At a Scientology-run faculty, Beck (his title acquired the C there) discovered little about arithmetic or historical past. Throughout these years, he endured issues that may hurt or warp a baby. When he was 15, a Scientology “ethics officer” found {that a} 32-year-old lady, who thought of Beck her “soul mate,” was sleeping in his mattress at evening. The connection with the older lady ended after it was found, however the one individual punished for it was the ethics officer who first reported the scenario; he was caught up in accusations and counteraccusations for years.
Round that point, with Channing and some pals — and with Bibbe’s help — Beck began a mimeographed poetry journal by and for younger individuals. They referred to as it Youthless. A French documentarian, directing a film in regards to the modern poetry scene in Los Angeles, heard in regards to the journal and filmed the teenagers as they crafted a difficulty. The documentary, Innerscapes, was launched in 1988. “I believe youngsters are mainly chargeable for their very own scenario,” teenage Beck mused to the digicam and the viewer. “I needed to be an artist. I needed to specific myself. I wasn’t going to take a seat down. I went and took duty for it and went out, and we’re doing this journal.
“However I believe if youngsters really feel they’re getting used or abused,” Beck continued, “they’re in the end chargeable for their very own situation.”
In Los Angeles in 1996.
Photograph: Ross Harris
Stardom arrived to a level Beck and Leigh by no means may have anticipated.
First got here the shock success of his slapdash rap single “Loser,” launched on impartial label Bong Load within the spring of 1993. It will grow to be a nationwide radio and MTV hit. Beck signed with Geffen Information and in 1994 launched Mellow Gold (licensed platinum), which he adopted with the important and business smash Odelay (licensed double platinum) in June 1996. He launched into a large multicountry tour that by no means appeared to finish or run out of explosive, genre-defying vitality.
By late 1996, there was Beck Hansen and there was “Beck.” Beck, as an idea, was largely constructed on Hansen’s music and voice: his stringy kind and his deliberate misdirection in interviews, his alternating folksy shyness and funky bombast onstage. However his collaborators helped flip Beck right into a cultural product, making movies, taking pictures images, offering musical inspiration for samples. Beck was an artwork piece, a Taking place, a cell efficiency set up made by the tireless work of a small coterie of individuals, together with Leigh. Leigh had been Beck’s girlfriend for 5 years by this level, and he or she was his stylist, defining his much-praised look. She combed classic and thrift retailers, scouring trend historical past to place collectively outfits for Beck that have been eclectic but persistently cool. It wasn’t a straightforward goal to hit, however Leigh’s sense of favor was unerring. Underneath her curation, Beck grew to become a trendsetter. And he acquired her concepts with enthusiasm. When Beck ready to place out a single of one of many dreamier tracks from Odelay, a breezy ode to wandering referred to as “Jack-Ass,” he requested Leigh to design the paintings and he or she discovered the right picture: an illustration of a grinning, braying donkey from an outdated youngsters’s e book. The picture could be distributed on an official Beck T-shirt. No matter Leigh received paid for her work went immediately into Beck’s checking account, which she had permission to attract from. She didn’t have her personal. However she took loads of delight in her a part of Operation: Beck.
Just lately, a brand new member had joined the artistic group: Beck’s father, David Campbell. Campbell hadn’t been very current in Beck’s life since 1988 or so, after Campbell had cut up up with Bibbe and began a brand new household. However curiously, not lengthy after “Loser” hit large, Campbell reemerged in Beck’s life and reestablished a long-dormant paternal relationship. (A consultant for Campbell didn’t reply to requests for remark.)
The “Jack-Ass” single featured a brand new observe referred to as “Unusual Invitation.” It was a rerecording of “Jack-Ass” with a studio orchestra gently taking part in behind Beck’s voice. The orchestral half was written and performed by Campbell. It was his first official collaboration together with his son, and it could be removed from the final. Nonetheless, Beck didn’t appear to need to speak, in personal or within the media, about having grown up because the youngster of a profitable music-industry hustler — a lot much less one who was so proudly and publicly concerned with a controversial non secular motion. He by no means talked about his dad to interviewers, not even now that Campbell was again in his life. And he by no means breathed a phrase about Scientology to journalists. (He publicly acknowledged his relationship to the church for the primary time in 2005.)
Generally, Leigh thought Beck must be extra forthcoming. To her, there was nothing about the true Beck that appeared crucial to cover. However it wasn’t value arguing with him — it solely made him shut down. He’d cease speaking, revert to a clean stare. In the event that they have been out in public when such a disagreement got here up, Beck would possibly stroll away, leaving Leigh alone wherever she was, even in a overseas metropolis. That was simply how he was. Leigh was used to it by now — his bizarre moments of distance, the surprising silences she’d run up towards from time to time.
So far as Leigh was involved, the most important drawback of their relationship wasn’t Beck’s father. It was Beck’s bassist.
Beck had wanted a brand new bass participant, so he’d talked about it to his father. Campbell occurred to know simply the man: 26-year-old Justin Meldal-Johnsen. Born into the Church of Scientology and employed by Campbell as a studio gofer for years, Meldal-Johnsen was searching for a gig. Absolutely Beck remembered him; they’d met after they have been each youngsters within the church and Meldal-Johnsen had began working for Campbell. Why not give him a strive?
Maybe it was coincidence that Campbell steered the bassist; maybe it was a part of a broader appeal offensive from the church. Both approach, Beck employed Meldal-Johnsen. And Leigh couldn’t stand him. He projected a wild and goofy picture, performing outlandish dance strikes and infrequently groping Beck onstage for comical impact. Regardless of these antics, he had an oddly quelling impact on enjoyable behind the scenes. As a Scientologist, Meldal-Johnsen didn’t smoke weed, which was fantastic — Beck didn’t smoke both. Fairly quickly, although, nobody else within the band may toke up with Meldal-Johnsen round until they needed to be lectured about drug abuse. And he was at all times round. Finally, marijuana was banned from the tour bus altogether.
Meldal-Johnsen wasn’t simply pleasant with Beck. He appeared dedicated to him in a approach Leigh didn’t like; it appeared inappropriately intimate, even proprietary. Leigh suspected he was there as an agent of the church, angling to get her boyfriend to drop in for a Dianetics seminar or an auditing session, only for outdated occasions’ sake.
All this had an impact. Beck was intrigued sufficient that he requested Leigh to affix him for a so-called Purification Rundown — a Scientology apply during which you go into an extremely sizzling room, take niacin tablets, and try and “sweat out” your “toxins.”
Leigh thought it appeared like a Native American sweat lodge. She had Latino roots on one facet of her household, and he or she favored to assume one in all her ancestors may need performed one thing related. She went to the “Purif,” because it was recognized, and had a good time. As they have been ending up, one of many Scientologists administering it requested if Beck and Leigh wish to sit for an auditing session. They politely declined.
Leigh began worrying when the telephone began ringing. And ringing. And ringing. She’d choose it up and there could be nothing. Simply silence. Generally, she may hear somebody respiration. She began to suspect there have been Scientologists on the opposite finish of the road.
It was 1998, about two years into Beck’s collaboration together with his father. Beck agreed the calls have been in all probability the church, and he instructed Leigh to simply ignore them. They started screening their telephone calls, ready for the machine to select up. Usually the individual calling let the tape run out, by no means saying a phrase.
To make issues worse, Leigh’s house had been invaded by musicians. Technically, it wasn’t truly hers, insofar as Beck’s was the title on the deed. He was additionally, technically, her major employer — most of her styling work was for his movies and picture shoots. Maybe she shouldn’t have grow to be that financially depending on her boyfriend, nevertheless it had by no means appeared like an issue. Till now.
She discovered herself marginalized in the home at any time when Meldal-Johnsen, Campbell, and the others have been over for his or her 16-plus-hour workdays. Beck was actually throwing himself into this new document. He was performed with being shaggy — this might be an album of precision.
It was November 1998, and he’d simply launched his stripped-down, folkie Mutations to rave critiques, however he was already telling reporters it was a “parenthetical work,” not the “true” follow-up to Odelay. For the reason that summer time, classes had been ongoing for that subsequent album, which Beck was going to name both Midnite Vultures or I Can Scent the VD within the Membership Tonight. “VD,” in that context, stood for “venereal illness.”
The songs have been a harmful dance with gender, sexuality, and race. The brash and brassy “Sexx Legal guidelines” had a refrain during which Beck stated he was “a full-grown man” however “not afraid to cry,” a line that evoked soul information of the ’60s — however that additionally felt delightfully misplaced on the earth of late-’90s rap-rock hardness. “Hollywood Freaks” was a rambling, surreal rap about life in L.A. that includes unusual, sexualized non sequiturs like “Norman Schwarzkopf! / One thing tells me you wanna go house!” On lots of the songs, Beck broke right into a falsetto that was a direct homage to Prince.
Specifically, Beck tinkered with a Prince-ish ode in partial tribute to Leigh. It was an R&B sluggish jam in regards to the narrator in search of the sexual firm of a mall worker named Jenny — and her sister, Debra. Most of it’s pure L.A. satire and fantasy (“Like a fruit that’s ripe for the pickin’ / I wouldn’t do you want that Zankou Hen” — a neighborhood chain), however the narrator mentions taking his date to Glendale for a “actual good meal.” Leigh used to work on the mall there. The track was not but launched, nevertheless it had grow to be a reside staple.
Leigh felt bizarre about the entire thing, particularly the observe referred to as “Debra.” He hadn’t even acknowledged that the track was about her. Leigh feared the tracks could be too arch, too pretentious, too insincere. They appeared like cocaine music, and Beck didn’t even do medication. The consequence was a document that was ferociously sexual, hidden behind a thick plexiglass wall of ironic take away. She heard her boyfriend sing “Sexx Legal guidelines” by means of their semi-soundproofed partitions. She may make out the chorus and thought of whether or not she’d ever seen her full-grown man cry. She couldn’t consider a single time. He was singing about ardour, however they hardly touched one another anymore.
Leigh suspected that rising up in Scientology had been traumatic for Beck. Nonetheless, she had no concept what, particularly, may need occurred to him. He stated so little about his upbringing. Leigh favored Campbell, however she remained deeply suspicious of the opposite church members. When Leigh confronted Beck about all of the Scientologists who have been now of their lives, he stated he had no plans to rejoin the church. She didn’t really feel reassured by how he stated it.
“Leigh,” he stated, “Scientology doesn’t make you a greater or worse individual. It simply makes you extra of who you might be.”
Because the summer time of 1999 waned, Leigh got here to Beck with a proposal — she needed to go on a tenting journey. She’d by no means actually been a metropolis lady, and he or she missed nature. She begged Beck to take a break from his music and commune along with her within the woods someplace. She needed to hit the RESET button.
Beck agreed. Then, mere days earlier than they have been set to go, he received a telephone name at their home. Leigh may hear him speaking excitedly. He hung up and ran to inform her he’d simply gotten an unbelievable alternative: David Bowie needed him to remix a brand new track referred to as “Seven.” Certainly, Bowie needed Beck to give you two remixes, every in a distinct type. He stated he needed to cancel the tenting journey.
It was at that second Leigh determined it was over between her and Beck. Solely she didn’t inform him. She was nonconfrontational, maybe to a fault. She felt too rooster to outright dump him. Extra essential, he was nonetheless the supply of her paychecks and housing. When he prioritized Bowie over her, her final embers of ardour fizzled out. Beck was hardly spending time with Leigh anymore, and he had by no means been essentially the most emotionally clever man. So if he observed his girlfriend’s apathy, he didn’t let on. He simply went again to the studio after which to his unending world tour.
Midnite Vultures was launched in November 1999. Geffen Information pushed the album as greatest it may and had excessive hopes for one more Odelay, however gross sales paled compared to that album’s. Important response was blended with even the optimistic write-ups criticizing Beck for giving in to his most emotionally empty impulses. “Midnite Vultures is full of great little quirks,” the web site AllMusic wrote. “What prevents the album from being an unqualified success is the sneaking suspicion that for all of the ingenuity, it’s all a hipster joke.” Or, as Q journal put it, “As musically dazzling as Midnite Vultures typically is, the one criticism that may be nonetheless leveled at Beck is that his songs stay surprisingly soulless … failing to ever actually grip the feelings or stir the soul.”
The reception of Midnite Vultures was, in its approach, a demise knell for the eclectic period of ’90s “different music.” Main labels would hardly ever take probabilities on albums as bizarre as that one once more.
By the spring of 2000, Beck and Leigh had settled right into a miserable dynamic: she the ignored, single housewife; he the jet-setting, more and more exhausted rock star. It didn’t appear to Leigh like something would change anytime quickly. Beck was as dedicated to the connection as he’d at all times been: monogamous however distant.
In the midst of Could, Beck as soon as once more kissed Leigh goodbye and launched into some tour dates, these ones in Japan. He had 9 exhibits booked there, a rustic the place he’d developed a large fan base.
The Beck who left for Japan was not the Beck who got here again. The exact particulars of what occurred there are obscure, and representatives for Beck didn’t reply to my requests for remark. What appears possible, primarily based on interviews with these near him — and given what transpired subsequent — is that somebody from or working for the church contacted Beck whereas he was there and offered him with info, a lot of it unfaithful. And it was all about Leigh.
Leigh, Beck was instructed, was a drug addict who had been dishonest on him behind his again. He was offered with an actual e-mail she had written to a buddy — Ed Smith — complaining about Beck’s failings as a boyfriend. Different supplies additionally could have been offered to him. Solely Beck can say for sure.
What is evident is that Leigh noticed none of this coming when she got here house to satisfy Beck on that evening within the late spring of 2000, when he received again from Japan. After listening to Beck’s tone, Leigh dissociated for lengthy minutes whereas her boyfriend delivered a livid soliloquy about her alleged sexual profligacy and rampant drug abuse and the way it had been ruining his life. When Beck completed, his lawyer requested Leigh to comply with her to the desk to signal some paperwork. Earlier than Leigh may reply, the lawyer knowledgeable her that she wouldn’t obtain any of her possessions in the home until she signed the papers.
Beck left the room. Leigh sat down and signed what was put in entrance of her with out studying any of it. The lawyer collected the papers and stated Leigh was to go away the premises.
“What about my stuff?” Leigh requested.
“We’ll contact you,” the lawyer replied.
Leigh was shuffled out of the home. Beck didn’t reappear to say goodbye. The door shut firmly behind her.
She stood alone on the garden. With out Beck, she was not simply single — she had no job, no checking account, no home. God, Leigh thought all of a sudden, the place will I even sleep tonight? Beck didn’t reply to requests for touch upon the breakup.
That evening, Leigh wandered to the considerably close by house of a pair she and Beck had been pals with. They took her in. She slept on their sofa. Days glided by with no phrase from anybody about her belongings. She wasn’t about to attempt to name Beck. One night, she went again to the home. She figured she may sneak in by means of the first-floor bed room window within the early night, when Beck was prone to be out; seize a few of her issues; and go. She arrived and crept as much as the window.
When Leigh regarded in, she was shocked to search out that the mattress was occupied. By Bibbe.
Earlier than Leigh may course of the visible info — her ex’s mother sleeping in her mattress — Bibbe observed her. They locked eyes. Bibbe stated, completely intelligible by means of the glass, “Go away, Leigh.” And so Leigh did. (“None of that is true. Simply specious gossip and muckraking,” Bibbe stated when reached for remark.)
The following day, Leigh made one final determined try and get her issues. This time, the bed room was empty, however the window was locked. She tried to pressure it open and wound up breaking the pane. She minimize her arm on the glass, a giant messy slash. She ran, trailing blood, and made it to a buddy’s place. They wrapped up the wound with some towels. No person steered she go to the physician. She didn’t have insurance coverage. Plus this wasn’t the kind of crowd that was into standard medication.
Months glided by. The wound on Leigh’s arm healed however left a scar. Phrase was handed to her: Beck desires to satisfy. It’s about your possessions. A time was set, the situation an all-night diner in Silver Lake referred to as Astro. On the appointed hour, Leigh arrived and located Beck ready for her. It was simply him this time. Him and one other stack of paperwork.
For a couple of minutes, they made awkward small speak. Beck got here throughout as robotic in his makes an attempt to be well mannered. Then he stated if she signed the papers he’d introduced, she would obtain her possessions and $60,000. Leigh didn’t know what to say. She was being purchased off, however she didn’t have many choices.
She signed what he put in entrance of her, not wanting on the particulars.
He handed her a examine for the promised quantity. She must work out the way to money it, however that was an issue for later.
As she received as much as depart, Beck regarded her useless within the eye and stated, “Leigh, you’re gonna be fantastic.” She virtually needed to chuckle. He stated somebody would get in contact along with her about her issues from the home. Nobody ever did.
Extra months handed. Leigh began to get again on her ft. She received some styling jobs. She took consolation in her household. She reconnected with pals. Certainly one of them, a guitarist named Jason Falkner who knew Beck, invited her to his New 12 months’s Eve social gathering for the changeover from 2001 to ’02.
Leigh arrived and shortly noticed that Beck was there too. She determined to maintain her distance.
Besides a girl who knew each of them ultimately grabbed Leigh and kind of threw her into Beck. Now he noticed her. For a panicked second, the 2 of them simply checked out one another. The world froze. After which Beck broke his terrified gaze. He turned and virtually flew out of the room.
The next summer time, Leigh began listening to rumors that Beck’s subsequent album was about her. About their breakup. She braced herself. Nothing may have ready her. When Sea Change was launched in September 2002 to important acclaim and vital gross sales, Leigh grew to become the Hester Prynne of American pop music, bearing her scarlet letter of (perceived) adultery. Leigh’s infidelity was taken without any consideration by journalists: “He found she had been dishonest on him,” a author at The Guardian wrote in a glowing profile of Beck and his new document, citing reporting on the cut up.
At occasions, Beck appeared virtually embarrassed that he’d put out such a transparently private document, not to mention that he needed to clarify it. A Blender profile by Dorian Lynskey gave a great sense of how awkward the interviews for Sea Change could possibly be:
“Listeners will naturally assume that a few of these songs are about Leigh Limon. Had been they written after you separated?”
“Er, slightly earlier than … after, however earlier than. I don’t know. [Sarcastically:] I’ll ship you the dates. I’ve them written down on my calendar at house.”
“Has she heard these songs but?”
“No. [The album] hasn’t come out.”
“We all know. We meant, are the 2 of you continue to in contact?”
His voice goes quiet, his temper arctic. “That’s none of your online business.”
The media by no means bored with describing Sea Change as his nice breakup document. Its Wikipedia entry nonetheless says it took place after Beck “found Limon had been having an affair.” Should you Google Leigh Limon as we speak, one of many AI-generated steered outcomes gives this overview on Sea Change: “The impetus for these songs was the tip of a long-term relationship. Weeks earlier than his thirtieth birthday in 2000, Beck found that his fiancée and companion of 9 years, Leigh Limon, had been dishonest on him with one other musician.”
In keeping with these near Leigh, round this time, she had began hanging out with Eastside L.A. musicians who reminded her of what Beck had been like after they first met. However she denied dishonest on him. Many felt that, even when she did, that’s simply the form of factor that occurs in a single’s 20s and 30s. However no person was asking for Leigh’s facet of the story in 2002, nor did she need to danger talking out towards Scientology in public.
Because the album grew in recognition, Leigh misplaced buddy after buddy. They didn’t clarify themselves. Maybe the music made them select sides in a approach they hadn’t felt they needed to earlier than.
Leigh ultimately noticed the writing on the wall: It was time to go away Los Angeles. She moved to the suburbs. Method out, nearer to her household. She rebuilt her social circle, reuniting with outdated pals from childhood. Finally, Leigh gave up on styling. The gigs had dried up, and he or she lived too removed from Hollywood. She labored odd jobs, touchdown a full-time gig at a warehouse doing transport achievement.
She finds it fairly satisfying. She works customary hours and does bodily labor, so she doesn’t must stare at a display screen or doomscroll all day. She has pals on the warehouse. She earns a gentle paycheck. And she or he has a household, whom she loves. She made it to the opposite facet of the river, towards all odds. She nonetheless has that 25-year-old scar on her arm however hardly notices it anymore.
It’s Could 11, 2024. Leigh is on the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. She’s watching New Wave legend Adam Ant play on the annual Merciless World music competition. Her buddy had gotten VIP passes for the entrance of the pit and thought Leigh would possibly need to go along with her. Leigh stated “sure,” so right here she is. She and her buddy are just a few dozen ft from the lip of the stage, carrying their entry lanyards. Leigh is bouncing alongside to the music when she notices a well-recognized head of hair in entrance of her as a part of the VIP crowd.
It’s Beck.
She hasn’t talked to him, and even been in the identical room as him, in additional than 20 years. 5 years prior, Beck instructed a reporter he wasn’t a Scientologist and that he had no connection or affiliation with the church. Ought to she say one thing? She’s stunned to search out that her first thought is I hope Beck stays for the entire Adam Ant present so he can see how an actual performer does issues.
She decides she’ll stay silent. She’s already had sufficient Beck in her life. And he by no means turns round to search out her anyway. Finally, earlier than the set is over, Beck walks away, by no means having observed his ex. Leigh silently chuckles to herself. His loss, she thinks. She may see him, however he couldn’t see her.
Tailored from the forthcoming e book The Final Temptation of Beck: The Untold Story of a Pop Messiah, by Josephine Riesman, to be printed by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Printed by permission. Copyright © 2026 by Josephine Riesman.
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Should you choose to learn in print, you may as well discover this text within the September 21, 2026, concern of
New York Journal.
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Should you choose to learn in print, you may as well discover this text within the September 21, 2026, concern of
New York Journal.