"I Never Knew What You Wanted, So I Gave You Everythin'

liam & noel photographed for the face + mojo magazine, 1995 📍

#liam's tweets #didn't Noel said once, Liam is just a pussycat? #headcanon

📷 Mitch Jenkins | 2001

i was lying 😃 i was pulling one’s leg 😜

(with enormous thanks to @noandneuron for their tremendous scholarly work taking pics of the library print version of this article, which seems to otherwise not exist online. original post with pics can be found here.)

LIAM WANTED ME TO MARRY HIM AND HAVE HIS BABY... BUT NOEL TORE US APART

SINGER FELL FOR WICKED SEX LIES ABOUT LOVER

by Phil Taylor, Chief Feature Writer (News of the World) (Sept 8, 1996)

Oasis idol Liam Gallagher's jilted fiancee opened her heart to the News of the World last night and told how her wedding plans were torn apart by his scheming brother Noel.

“Liam was the love of my life and we planned to get married and have children,” seethed Cerice Blakeley. “But Noel wrecked our relationship because the most important thing in his life was Oasis and he felt that I was in the way. I will never, ever forgive him. Noel deviously told his brother the most hurtful allegation that he could about me—that I had betrayed him and had sex with the band's cocaine supplier. I never two-timed Liam. But he believed Noel and was absolutely devastated. To this day he doesn't know the truth. Now Liam's with Patsy Kensit. I wonder if Noel will do the same to her.”

Life had all looked so different when Cerice first met the brothers who were yet to take Britain by storm. It was in a marquee near Oldham in May 1992—and it was Cerice's 21st birthday.

“I was heavily into the Manchester music scene,” she said. “And I was friendly with a band called the Inspiral Carpets—at the time Noel worked for them as a roadie. When he came along with the band I wasn't attracted to him at all. I hated his haircut—it looked as though someone had used a bowl. But I took one look at Liam and it was love at first sight.

“He wore blue cords and a dark navy kagoule and looked adorably different. I got quite flirtatious with him and later we arranged a date. Liam couldn't drive and was living at his mum Peggy's council house in Manchester. So I picked him up in my Citroen and we went up on the moors. Liam gave me the most amazing kiss I've ever had. It seemed to go on for ages and my mind was in a whirl. I felt so turned on I wanted to have sex with him there and then. I know he felt the same.

“But we decided to do it properly, so we booked into a lovely country hotel. I've never felt so excited in my life as we finally curled up on the bed and smoked a joint of marijuana. We kissed and kissed and I was ready and willing for Liam to make love to me. But to my disappointment, he suddenly stopped and told me, 'I respect you too much.' I couldn't believe it. It was so unlike a Manchester bloke. But I was very touched and it made me love him and want him even more.”

Liam later invited Cerice home to meet his mum. Then, she said, after a cup of tea and a chat they went upstairs to Liam's bedroom... and made love for the first time.

Cerice sighed: “Liam was only 19, two years younger than me, and was very nervous in bed. I wanted to strip him off, but he was so self conscious. He wouldn't take off his cream woolly jumper because he felt his chest was too puny. So I tried to break the ice and joked: 'Don't worry about your chicken chest, you've got lovely footballer's legs.'

“It worked. He relaxed and we made love to Hey Jude, one of his favourite Beatles songs. I felt wonderful afterwards and spent the night in Liam's bed. Then, the next morning, he brought me up a cup of tea and we chatted for ages.

“Then he ran a bath and started putting handfuls of salt in it. I couldn't believe my eyes and asked him what he was doing. He told me, 'It helps strengthen my bones.'

“Afterwards he spent ages doing his hair... he was always using his mum's hairdryer. I told him, 'You're going to end up like Mick Jagger.' Then I asked him if he wanted to try my mascara—and he did. But he went one step further and squeezed into my size 8 velvet jacket too. Then he put on the Rolling Stones record Satisfaction, pouted his lips and started strutting around the bedroom like Jagger. I creased up laughing. I'm only 5ft 5ins and Liam is 5ft 11ins. The jacket was so tiny on him, the sleeves rolled up around his elbows. But he loved it and it turned him on. He fell on the bed and we had fantastic sex for 45 minutes. Afterwards, Liam told me, 'I'm not gay or bisexual. I'm just in touch with my feminine side.'”

Cerice saw Liam and Oasis rise from obscurity to stardom. “I went to the studio with them while they were recording their album Definitely Maybe and knew they were going to be massive,” she said. “It went to No. 1.”

Two years after they met, Cerice's life seemed complete. “We had just got back to Liam's mum's house from a gig in Sheffield,” she said. “Liam looked really nervous. He told me, 'I have got something very nice to ask you. Will you marry me? I want you to have my children.'

“I was thrilled. I gave him a big hug and said, 'Of course I will.' We celebrated with a glass of his favourite drink. Jack Daniel's and Coke. Then we went round to my home and he told my dad. Liam said to him, 'I love Cerice and I want her to feel secure, so I've asked her to get engaged.'

“Being a practical, logical man, Dad asked Liam how financially secure he felt he was going to be. At the time, Liam was only getting £100 a week from the band. And he told my dad he couldn't even afford to buy me an engagement ring. But he said he was saving up to get me one. Dad wasn't too impressed. But he gave us his blessing because he wanted me to be happy.”

Liam's brother Noel, she said, was less pleased. “Noel nicknamed me Yoko Ono,” she recalled bitterly. “He felt I'd pull Liam away from the band, just as Yoko did with John Lennon and the Beatles. Nothing could have been further from the truth.”

Cerice and Liam rented a flat in the Didsbury area of Manchester for £75 a week and moved in together. “He put his favourite posters on the ceiling of our front room,” she said. “They were of John Lennon and the Stone Roses, one of his favourite bands.

“I would do the cooking—Liam's favourite meal was steak and Walker's crisps—but he'd always do the washing up and we would take turns with the hoovering. The only thing that annoyed me about him was that he always left his wet towels on the bathroom floor.”

It was in that flat, said Cerice, that the couple planned a family. She sighed, “I said I wanted a little girl and told Liam I hoped she'd have my hair, my brain, and his tenderness. He joked that he wanted a little boy who loved Manchester City, then said, 'I really don't mind what sex it is. I just want to have a baby with you.'”

And all the time, she confessed, their sex life became more and more intense—fuelled by drugs. “I must admit we took our share of cocaine through a £10 note,” she said. “It was extra special when we got in bed together because Liam was away on tour more and more as the band got bigger and bigger. I saw them play before 100,000 at Glastonbury and they were phenomenal.”

In the summer of 1994, Cerice and Liam drove to Scotland together for the massive Tea In The Park festival. “As the journey went on we were feeling friskier by the minute,” she said. “After four hours' driving we couldn't wait any longer. We were travelling on the M74 through Scotland when we saw a big wood. We looked at each other, smiled, and both had exactly the same idea.

“I pulled over, parked on the hard-shoulder and we ran off into the woods. Then we lay down on the soft moss and made wild, blissful love. It was the first time I had ever had sex outside and I think it was for Liam. We were there for nearly an hour writhing among the undergrowth before we finally got up and made our way back to the car. But as we walked back close to the motorway, holding hands and beaming smiles, passing motorists saw us and started beeping their horns. It was obvious what we had been up to and I was blushing bright red. So was Liam.”

They were never to be as happy again. After the concert, Cerice went backstage to congratulate Liam on his performance but could only find Noel. “I asked him where Liam was and he told me, 'He had to leave to catch a plane from Manchester for a concert in Germany tomorrow night. We're performing in Hamburg and he unexpectedly had to catch the flight tonight. I'll be flying over in the morning.'

“Bewildered, I went back to Noel's hotel where I met Simon, the band's cocaine supplier, and a record company executive. He told me he could get keys to Noel's room and I could sleep there. There were two single beds. I fell asleep in one and Simon and this fella slept on the floor, keeping the other one free for Noel.

“Then, at about 6am, Noel came into the room with a blonde and said, 'Oh, you're all in here.' Then he got into his bed with the girl and I went back to sleep. At 9am Noel got up and said, 'I'm going to Hamburg. I've told Liam you're OK and you'd phone him tonight.”

Later that day, Cerice phoned the Gallaghers' mum and she told her that Liam had phoned to pass on his apologies for missing her in the Scottish crowd. That night, Cerice managed to contact him herself.

“He was really angry and abrupt,” she said. “He told me, 'I need to talk to you face to face and not over the phone.' Then he slammed the phone down. I was distraught. He'd never spoken to me like that before and I couldn't understand why. Now I know. Noel told Liam I'd cheated on him and slept with Simon. A friend of mine told Liam it wasn't true. But he wouldn't believe her because it came from his own brother. He was shattered and went completely off the rails afterwards.

“We met just once when he returned to Manchester from Hamburg. I told him he shouldn't have treated me so badly. But we were both so angry and upset we couldn't even row. Instead he walked out of the door and out of my life. I haven't seen or heard from him since. He has never answered my calls. Noel must be delighted.”

After their split in August 1994, Cerice left Britain for Australia to get over the trauma. “It was while I was there that Oasis released Don't Look Back in Anger,” she said. “I tried to relate it to my own circumstances, but I can't look back in any other way. I have no anger towards Liam. But for Noel I have. I despise him. After we split up Liam was shattered and went completely off the rails. He simply hasn't been the same since.”

did you see the new jill book

WE SURE DID

Coming this September: ‘OASIS: Trying to Find a Way Out of Nowhere’ by Jill Furmanovsky and Noel Gallagher. Iconic photos by Jill Furmanovsky chart the dramatic career of Oasis – on stage, backstage and in the studio – paired with exclusive commentary by Noel Gallagher. Jill Furmanovsky’s unparalleled work with Oasis stretches from the end of 1994 to their last shows in 2009. Jill was given unprecedented access to countless worldwide performances and many recording sessions. In this beautiful volume, overseen and edited by Noel Gallagher, award-winner Furmanovsky presents classic highlights and unseen images from her complete Oasis archive, which she describes as her best body of work, as well as insightful observations taken from notes she made at the time. Organized chronologically, the book depicts more than 500 photographs, contact sheets and sequenced film strips of the band on stage, backstage, on the road, in the studio and behind the scenes. Jill captured the drama of the band’s lifestyle during the 1990s when, as she said, ‘they were on a comet, hanging on for dear life’. The access she was given allowed closeness, and she was able to document the competitive and at times volatile relationship between Noel and Liam Gallagher up to their split in 2009, creating a poignant visual diary that is more than the sum of its parts. In this book she extends the visual story to 2025*, capturing the band in rehearsal for the upcoming reunion tour. Accompanying the images is illuminating commentary by Noel Gallagher, who relates the inside stories of the events pictured in many of the shoots and demonstrates an honest and touching relationship between band and photographer. Three essays by music journalists provide context to the band’s story, and an introduction by Jill celebrates the supreme significance of Oasis in her 50+ years photographing musicians. *Definitely…Maybe ‘OASIS: Trying to Find a Way Out of Nowhere’ by Jill Furmanovsky and Noel Gallagher publishes in the UK on 23rd September and in the US on 14th October.

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More Jill photos with commentary from Noel, including 2025 stuff?? will be spending money we don't have come October...