Consuelo

What hasn’t CONSUELO VANDERBILT COSTIN done? You could say the singer, composer, songwriter, designer, actress, philanthropist, and entrepreneur has built her success on not only finding her voice, but in helping others find theirs.

Despite the pedigree attached to her family name—she is a seventhgeneration descendent of shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt—Consuelo found success through anonymity and carved out her own identity along the way. With an impressive music career—signing her first record deal at age 21, founding her own label and producing multiple hit singles—and her own jewelry line, Consuelo launched SohoMuse, a member-driven social networking platform for creatives, in 2017.

SohoMuse has become a melting pot of globally renowned designers, artists, musicians, directors, dancers, makeup artists and more who have collaborated on projects around the world. With the recent launch of SohoMuse Presents VOICES, these creative professionals now have an additional outlet to face issues like women’s rights and diversity.

Whatever Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin hasn’t done, she’ll likely approach it with the same heart and fearlessness that has driven her all her life.

Can you tell our readers about your work with death row inmates?

I am honored and it has been one of the greatest lifechanging roles for me to facilitate the release of Jimmy Dennis’s story to the world, and to help his life dreams come true. Jason Flom, from the Innocence Project, has been a major supporter of Jimmy. He also founded and was the former chairman of several record companies, including Lava records. But Jason is also known for his work in criminal justice reform, and more specifically the Innocence Project. He has 30 million subscribers on his podcast, which came out on October 23rd.

So, you explore the aftermath the families suffer . . . emotions like shame?

Yes, and we will also expose what happens with the wrongfully convicted and innocent. Can you imagine being incarcerated when you are innocent, yet everyone around you believes that you’re not? How do you live with that?

No, I cannot imagine that…not as a mother, as a sister, as a wife.

Let’s shift to you, Consuelo, and start from the beginning. You have a worldview that is second to none. What are your first memories of London? Do you remember being in the United States before you left for London at the age of two?

I do. My Dad loved gymnastics and would take me before I moved to London. I had a strong bond with my dad, which was my foundation and the beginning of memories. I adored gymnastics.

How do you maintain your physicality today?

I work out four or five days a week and then things slowed down during the Pandemic when I was unwell, and now I am fully recovered and back to working out 3-4 days a week.

So how do you mitigate stress?

I learned about managing stress when my mom got sick. I became her health proxy, which was my greatest honor, to take care of her for her last four years. I found a way to deal with her situation in the most amazing way because I saw myself as if I was a person watching myself. I was the best of myself then. I managed my stress in the most powerful way. At that moment, I was able to see myself in the worst of times under stress. Whether it was taking walks, writing, or being completely in my music journaling, it was my absolute release. I learned that if everything were to be banished . . . if I were to lose every piece of jewelry, everything tangible, and was left with only the clothing that I had on my back, the one thing that I would have is my journals. They are the chapters of my life and tell the stories of my life.

Are you going to publish them?

Probably. That truly was how I dealt with my stress at that moment. Today, I don’t deal with my stress the same way. But I am finding a way to meditate more peacefully, play piano, listen to calming music and to overall try to be more balanced. Which is not easy for me, lol, but trying.

You really have learned a little bit more about yourself?

Just being very truthful about who I am. Even in that honesty, always acknowledging the place that I’m in at that moment, and facing my fears, and always trying to overcome them to the best of my ability.

Your parents seemed to be very athletic, which told me a couple of things about your point of reference—your physicality, determination, and willpower. As an outsider, I see these as your strongest traits and characteristics. Can you tell me more about your mom?

I just got chills. My mom was such a light. She was absolutely beautiful, looked like Barbie, and had a very dirty sense of humor. She had these amazing dimples and could get away with murder. She could just walk into a room and light it up. She could light up the world. She was silly and yet she also made the world a better place. She really did. She knew about family and understood connecting. She was all heart.

What was your relationships with your mother like?

We had a beautiful relationship, but as with most mother/ daughter relationships things can be complicated. I think being a singer going against the grain of my family was unnerving for my mother and I think she worried for my path but always supported my songwriting.

How did you come about the name Rebel?

I have never done anything that anyone ever told me to do, haha. Not ever. I follow my own rule book.

Yet, have you been able to sustain a marriage?

Yes and Rafael and I have a wonderful marriage. He is incredibly supportive always of my family and my Dreams. We have been through a lot together and I am forever grateful to him. He is hysterical, so talented, and incredibly bright and very handsome, I think.

She was in San Francisco, and you had a seven-piece male rock band in Los Angeles. How did that work for the relationship?

Raf and I had only been together for three months. I would commute between SF and LA singing in my band and taking care of my Mom. Raf would also come and visit in SF. I am so grateful to him for his support.

I was recording an album in LA at the time, and I was working. I would go back and forth taking care of her. And then I would come back. I became an advocate for the American Cancer Society and the vice president of the Ovarian Cancer Coalition. All this allowed me to acquire information for my mom. I became a huge champion for the Ovarian Cancer Coalition, and that was my greatest gift.

You were her advocate and caregiver until she passed.

I was. My mom made dying okay on every level.

She embraced it.

She did. She did. She did something I had never known. She really made dying okay. She made the world okay. Walking through it with her, as painful as her chemo treatments or her radiation treatments were, I became a part of her journey. It wasn’t something that was wrong. Are you familiar with the CaringBridge?

Yes, but for those unfamiliar can you describe the CaringBridge?

It is a wonderful online tool that allows you to share health updates, and it lets the patient communicate firsthand in their own words, as my mom did, to thousands and thousands of people. Even when she may not have wanted to speak to someone because she did not feel well enough, family and friends would tune in and read her words. The sharing changed my mother’s life. The CaringBridge became her journal. It became the chapters of her life story. People from all around the world would read what she shared on CaringBridge . . . they would tune in every day.

Beautiful. Consuelo, let’s now focus on your life at the time of your mother’s illness . . . on your music career. What was going on with your band?

We wrote an album together, which was an extraordinary process because I had been signed and was in a production deal with Peter Amato, this amazing songwriter. On two or three occasions in my life, I have worked with genius songwriters like Matt Prime, where the world stops during the collaboration and there is such amazing magic.

Were you a collaborator on songwriting?

Yes, always. The magic happens and your world stops when you are so in sync with an artistic genius that you finish each other’s sentences. I write a melody; someone writes a lyric. I had a collaborator, Andrew Richford, who is one of the longest-standing Sony artists on this planet. He would call them purple notes. It’s an unimaginable world that you can’t quite describe, but where collaborations truly come from.