‘In my job, if you turn off the phone and laptop and talk to people, things happen’

Britain's leading celebrity biographer, Sean Smith, author of six bestsellers, describes the journeys he makes to discover the real people behind the celebrities

Justin and Britney used to date and performed together at the Disney School in Orlando, Florida (Rex Features)

My first solo biography was of the author JK Rowling. Back then in 2000, she wasn’t yet one of the great icons of popular culture. All I knew about her was the publicity cliché of her being a single mother made good. It was the same tired story repeated constantly about her. So I ignored all that and started her journey at the beginning in the villages near Bristol where she grew up.

I discovered she was childhood friends with the Potter family who had lived in the same street and I spoke to them about childhood dressing-up games and Jo Rowling’s vivid imagination. I remember Mrs Potter telling me that Jo always had a big aversion to spiders. It’s no surprise that spiders the size of carthorses feature in her books.