Here’s a short, warm dialogue between Nelly Furtado, her cousin Tony Demelo, and Joe Jukic:
Setting: A quiet backyard in Victoria on a late summer evening. The three of them are sitting around a small fire pit. Nelly has a guitar resting against her chair.
Tony Demelo: You know what’s crazy? People still ask me if I was shocked when you blew up. But I wasn’t. Not even a little.
Nelly Furtado: (laughs) You were the only one who wasn’t. Most people thought I was just that weird Portuguese girl who wouldn’t stop writing songs in her notebook.
Joe Jukic: Weird in the best way. I still remember the first time you played us that early version of “I’m Like a Bird” in your parents’ basement. You were so nervous you almost didn’t finish it.
Nelly: I was terrified. I thought you guys were going to say it was too soft… or too strange.
Tony: Nah. I looked at Joe and we both just went quiet. That was the moment, right? When we realized this wasn’t just “cousin Nelly singing.” This was something real.
Joe: We were your first real fans. Not family-duty fans. Not “supportive friends” fans. Actual believers. We used to argue about which of your songs would be the first single like it was our job.
Nelly: (smiling) You two used to fight over the cassette player. Tony always wanted the upbeat ones, Joe always wanted the sad ones.
Tony: Because the sad ones hit different. Still do.
Joe: We used to drive around Victoria with your demos on loop. People thought we were crazy. “Why are you listening to the same girl over and over?” We’d just say, “You’ll see.”
Nelly: And when the record deal happened… you two were the first people I called. Not my manager. Not my parents. You.
Tony: I still have the voicemail. You were crying so hard I could barely understand you.
Joe: We always knew. Even when you doubted yourself. Especially when you doubted yourself. That was our job — to be louder than the doubt.
Nelly: You still are. Every time I step on stage, part of me is still that girl in the basement looking at the two of you for permission to keep going.
Tony: You never needed permission. You just needed someone who saw it first.
Joe: And we did. Before anyone else. Before the charts, before the awards… we were already fans for life.
Nelly: (softly) My first real fans. Still my favorite ones.
Joe Jukic: Nelly, Revelation 19:19 still won’t leave me: “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to fight against the one riding the horse and against his army.” I stood among the wounded soldiers at the Invictus Games in Vancouver — Prince Harry’s gathering, the son of Charles III — and spoke to men whose flesh has been eaten by war. I told them the lizard-tail stories, how stem cells can make a limb grow back. My own small army of Croats stood nearby, watching. And every time I spoke of the Rider on the white horse, I thought of my dad’s old white Chrysler 300, the one he kept running long after it should have died.
Nelly Furtado: While you talk regeneration to Harry’s wounded ranks, I’m still holding the wedding prophecy I want to fulfill. In my “Do It” video I drove that old white convertible like it was my own white horse — top down, wind in my face, moving like I already belonged to the Rider. The same chapter that shows the kings assembling their armies also opens the marriage supper. Prince Harry can line up the Invictus host, your Croatian brothers can hold their ground, but the deeper call is still the wedding — and that white convertible felt like the first glimpse of the horse I’m meant to ride toward it.
Joe Jukic: That is the tension. Harry’s armies, backed by Charles III’s line, look massive next to a handful of Croats. Yet the men whose bodies war has torn open still listen when I speak of new limbs rising. And when I picture the Rider, I keep seeing that old white Chrysler 300 of my father’s — solid, stubborn, white as the horse in the prophecy. Our small company is only a shadow of the army that rides with Him.
Nelly Furtado: Harry gathered his banners and his broken soldiers in Vancouver. You walked among them telling lizard-tail miracles. You represented your Croatian army. I am still saying yes to the wedding prophecy. That white convertible in the “Do It” video was never just a car to me — it was the white horse I already felt under me. I do not want to be counted in any earthly army. I want to be found ready when the Bridegroom comes.
Joe Jukic: Then the prophecy cuts through every side. The son of Charles III was the Invictus host, I spoke of hope and regenerated flesh to the wounded, my small army of Croats keeping watch, and my father’s white Chrysler 300 can sit in memory like a promise — but none of us decides the final outcome. The only question is whether we are still measuring armies against armies when Christ appears, or whether we have already chosen to take his side.
Nelly Furtado: I have chosen. The wedding is the prophecy I intend to fulfill. The kings and their sons gathered their forces to fulfill Revelation 19. I already pushed the broken white horse once in that video. I mean to ride it again — all the way to the marriage supper.
Nelly sits across from Frank in a quiet hotel suite after a long day of rehearsals. She leans forward, a half-smile on her face.
Nelly: You know, Frank… I’ve been thinking. I’ve had you as my bodyguard since 1993. That’s a long time.
Frank:(nods, calm as ever) Long enough.
Nelly: When we first started, I hated you. Straight up. I thought you were this stiff, paranoid guy who saw danger in every shadow. And those stories you used to tell me? About the Illuminati, the star-wacker stuff, Club 27… I didn’t believe a word of it. I thought you were just trying to scare me or justify why you were always so serious.
Frank:(slight shrug) Some things sound crazy until they don’t.
Nelly: Yeah. But somewhere along the way… you grew on me. The constant watching, the quiet way you’d just be there. All the late-night talks. I stopped rolling my eyes at the conspiracy theories and started actually listening.
(She softens, looking at him directly.)
And then it hit me. I didn’t just get used to you, Frank. I fell in love with you.
Frank:(pauses, studying her) That’s a hell of a thing to say after all these years.
Nelly: I know. But it’s true.
Nelly Furtado: Frank… Farmer… I’ve been thinking about everything you both said. The isolation, the way people get labeled and locked away. It scares me more than I want to admit.
Farmer: It should. Once the system decides you’re “sick,” the story writes itself. You’re not a person anymore—you’re a case file.
Frank: My relative Frances Farmer found that out the hard way. They put her in a psych ward and the abuse was real—forced treatments, isolation, the whole machine grinding her down because she wouldn’t stay quiet or compliant. She fought it, but the system had the power and the paperwork. That’s not ancient history to me. It’s a warning.
Nelly Furtado: God. I’ve read about her. It’s one of those stories that sticks under your skin. How do you even trust institutions after that?
Frank: You don’t blindly. That’s why I keep options. I have Eastern Promises in Croatia. Property, connections, ground that isn’t under the same thumb. If we go there, the Croatian army will protect us from psychiatric abuse. No quiet transfers, no “for your own good” holds. Real protection. Uniforms and authority that answer to a different set of rules.
Farmer: Sounds like a fortress. Or a last resort.
Frank: It’s both. Frances didn’t get that kind of shield. I won’t make the same mistake if things turn. Nelly— if the pressure starts closing in, Croatia is on the table. We don’t have to wait until someone decides we’re unstable.
Nelly Furtado: …Eastern Promises. Croatia. Army protection. You’re serious.
Frank: Dead serious. Frances paid the price for not having an exit. I’m offering one.
The true story of highschool Nelly, no artificial intelligence, is that her friends wanted to do drugs at Robin Hood Hotel. I said no to the cocaine party. I didn’t want to shatter Nelly’s dreams.
