SPOTTED: the perfectionist back on stage, silently praying no one will mention their past downfalls. while their fans may be happy to forgive and grow, i love to keep score -- don't worry, i'll make sure to remind you of every misstep and undoing, especially the ones that landed them on the cover of page six.
NAME: gabriel 'gabe' miller.
AGE & DATE OF BIRTH: 32, february 16th, 1994.
NEIGHBORHOOD: lower east side.
OCCUPATION: musician (djo/tame impala career claim).
pr girlfriend, the femme fatale. the best way to rehab an image? control the narrative. a summer fling between two childhood friends seems like the best recipe for the two, despite not being particularly fond of each other. on paper, it is the perfect way to drown any commentary on their past relationships and get both of their brands back on track. it’s mutually beneficial to show off how good of a match they are; strategic paparazzi pics, walking red carpets together, plenty of egregious pda, whatever needs to be done to sell the dream. of course, nothing says romance quite like a contractual agreement.
band mates, the thrill seeker, the savant, the genius. four friends coming together to create something new, to let loose on stage and release their artist freedom — despite the highs and (very low) lows that follow close behind stardom. the perfectionist as the frontman and vocals, hyper critical and struggling to stay afloat; the genius on guitar, bringing the vision to life with their signature flair; the thrill-seeker on drums, keeping the group both high energy and on their toes; finally, the savant on bass, rounding out the group and holding the threads together with a white knuckle grip. on stage, they’re a force to be reckoned with… behind the scenes is far more chaotic.
when you’re born into the entertainment industry, when your uncles and aunts are famous producers or lawyers, actresses and composers, is there really a choice to take another path? can you say that it’s your true passion? or was it simply instilled in you through sheer proximity? when your childhood bedroom is filled with instruments, sheets music, posters of dead bands and the walls of your father’s study are lined up with gold records so shiny they almost glow in the dark, the line between destiny and coercion is a fine one.
gabe, born from daniel miller, the famous industry mogul, and his wife antonina passerini, the equally famous opera singer, has wondered since childhood if his life was truly his, or was it just the echo of his parents’ voices.
was it destiny, when his mother put him in music classes at the tender age of four years old, making him able to read sheets music before actual books? was it really a calling when he joined the church choir, a young soprano at the age of thirteen, preening under his mother’s approval, chasing the accolades from his father? or was it only really the only way he was able to connect with his emotionally distant parents, so busy showering his older brother, lorenzo, with all the attention?
though some catty people could say the brothers were always competing for their parents’ love, it wasn’t really the case. lorenzo was so much ahead in the race that gabe could never really keep up. so he just mimicked the way his parents were acting with his brother: like a modern day midas, every little effort (récompensé) with the most absolute love and devotion. lorenzo was the real star: a young actor, already popular, already featuring in so many movies. sure, like with gabe later in his musical career, his father did pull some strings here and there - after all, if you have all those connections, better use them than let them rot - but lorenzo did the rest of the work. with his own fanclub at the tender age of fourteen, paparazzis following his every move throughout his teenage years… them too, were attracted to his addictive warmth.
it wasn’t a bad place, all in all, for gabe to be. in the shadow of his brother, gabe had room to breathe. made time to practice with only half his mother’s wrath correcting his every mistake
(when there wasn’t any, she would smile. his father would nod. it was everything to him.)
and his father’s absence wouldn’t hurt so much. where lorenzo was talented with saying the words, gabe could write them better than anybody. if he wasn’t playing something somewhere, he was writing - songs, poetry, anything. whispered them to his brother, to hear how they would sound through a voice more courageous than his. but his brother lost interest when they weren’t scenes, sonnets and poems he could recite.
it all changed for the worse on lorenzo’s nineteenth birthday. as any young man with a too-big personality, his brother always thought the rules never applied to him. that he could walk life and make it bend to his will, and not the other way around.
it proved to be false when his car crashed into a tree in the dead of night. none of the passengers, save for the miller boy, survived the accident. though lorenzo did not emerge unscathed from this situation: his brain, forever changed, could not remember a single thing that happened during the day anymore. sometimes, old memories resurfaced; one would find himself the boy lost, memories of his real life blending with his roles, making him suspicious, moody, afraid.
visits were excruciatingly painful. once, his brother spent twenty repeating the same questions: when was the accident, where was his friends, what did he have. all that to have him get up, take a walk and get lost in their neighbourhood for two hours before they found him. while sometimes gabe could have lucid discussions with his brother, those moments were rare.
it was the first time gabe really knew grief.
soon enough, the older brother left the family home, but not of his own volition. even with a live-in nurse, he was impossible to be around. a danger to himself, a danger to others. his brain injury erased the dear boy he was; only a shell of himself, his parents couldn’t take care of him anymore. took the hard decision to place him in a specialised clinic, just outside of new york.
but with him gone, the parent focus shifted. for the first time in years, gabe had to go up the pedestal and there was no railing to keep him steady. with shaky legs, gabe would have to stay strong, to stay perfect because if it had been high enough for lorenzo, it only went up with his disappearance. gabe now had to make up for his brother’s stupidity and show the world that the millers were not failures. that this had been just a small misstep in his father’s legacy. gabe’s success would have to repair the broken tapestry that was his family.
the only way to do so was to be perfect. though his mother already drilled it into him, it only went up a notch further. from his relationships, to his appearance, to his music: everything was combed through, any knots would be unmade, removed, burnt away. nothing was left to chance.
it was a comfort, really. because the more flawless he could get, the happiest his parents were. his father squeezing his arm, a warm smile on his face. that had been his reaction when gabe’s band won its first prize. his mother, though originally recalcitrant at seeing him choose a more…alternative style of music, kissed both his cheeks, her eyes filled with happy tears.
they were just so proud of him. finally.
there was still a gnawing thought, in the back of gabe’s head always: what’s next?
what was next was another very successful album. more grammys and awards, making appearances on late-night shows, prime spots in music festivals, an amazing, successful tour across the states, then another one in europe and asia.
it was a double-edged sword, because some details, though already in solving phase of their existance, kept him up at night. a review that in the past would have irritated him at best was now occupying all his thoughts for days. one small disagreement in the band became a crisis.
it was little, normal things that pushed him to near neurosis. everything would be constantly revisited. every little issue now tweaked the moment it occurred, conflicts resolved before they even started, every word written carefully thought and chosen, every sound arranged with obsessive minutiae.
gabe would fix things before they broke. then would fix the fixes.
and when that didn’t work out, he would try to fix himself.
the logic behind all this was that nothing could ever go wrong, because the truth was that gabe couldn’t deal when things did not go according to plan. that meant that gabe did not deal at all when the third album dropped and that it was, according to the critics, a disaster.
(it wasn’t really. the general consensus was that it felt less authentic than the previous two, less gritty, less…new york city underground, you know? there’s nothing worse than being the most unreliable narrator in your own story.)
gabe started unraveling at this point. his meticulously crafted work, his art, his life, his facade; everything was crumbling, and with it his mental health. the pressure really did a number and upset his whole routine: the band got into fights, the tour sold fewer tickets, gabe got irritated during interviews, and during fan interactions. where gabe had the reputation of being sweet and generous with fans, he found himself empty now; unable to provide them with the gentleness of artists, the silent devotion to fans, the acceptance of their love.
there was even one time, a young fan, earnest and patient, had waited on them with a bunch of other people, and she handed him a picture to sign. told him how amazing the show was, how she travelled from so far to come to their show. and gabe had resisted a sign, offered her a tight smile, and when the fan had asked, “i’m kinda worried, are you okay?”, gabe had clenched his jaw and bluntly told her to just take the autograph.
the interaction went viral online and he was slammed for being rude, cold, name it. gabe never managed to reach her afterwards and by the time he worked up the courage, the story had already grown bigger than both of them.
sleep deprivation was his go-to excuse, especially to his mother. he couldn’t sleep, work was exhausting, he was tired. she practically forced him to see a therapist, and it worked, for a time. until he started lying in sessions, because he couldn’t bear the fact that a stranger would know him less than perfect. less than the golden boy of the miller family. they prescribed him pills, though, which was a win, in gabe’s twisted perception of reality.
which was just another way to solve problems. he couldn’t sleep; pills helped. and what if gabe thought it such an easy problem to fix that he decided to self-medicate? how suddenly relieved he was to be able to take matters in his own hands and find a solution, one he could admit wasn’t perfect, and suddenly feel better? after all, he knew the right dosage, knew exactly what it would help with, so what if gabe couldn’t go through a few days without also taking recreational drugs? it was simply to give him enough energy to go through a show, an interview, a dinner with his parents.
simple things that gabe couldn’t handle on their own, but it wasn’t an issue. it was support; help.
no, the blind spot in gabe’s logic was the public, once again. the internet and its many eyes, who would spot him way too many times affected, which only helped building a new web of rumours: the boy was pulling a lindsay lohan. and as horrible it might sound, gabe would immensely relate with her a few months down the line, feel so much empathy for her, and all the other pop stars they used to mock for their burnout.
because gabe, lying down in a very white bed in the most secluded, private rehab facility his father could find close to home, absolutely understood the struggle. he thinks they were always just trying to solve problems, and he would never be able to fault them. he thinks that like them, he had forgotten along the way which problem the drugs and the pills were solving; that maybe the only problem left was themselves.
gabe had overdosed after a show. the official story was that it was intentional. gabe, to this date, is still unsure if it was. but he thinks it probably is.
how horrible it is, to craft your life with so many details as to make it perfect, and then one stupid night, just because you can’t handle a little pressure, you mess it all up?
gabe spent most of 2025 in rehab, and when he left, back to his studio flat on the lower east side, the only thing he wanted was to buy more drugs and pretend none of it had ever happened. rehab had given him a lot of things: perspective, apparently. coping mechanisms for his anxiety. a healthier outlook on life (he still hates kale with a vengeance, but an apple a day did keep his doctor away). a collection of inspirational quotes he would rather die than repeat out loud.
what it hadn’t given him was the desire to stay sober.
but his plans were considerably shaken when his dealer (some guy gabe grew up with, one of them, some might say) croaked. so surprising, gabe always assumed he'd lose his dealer to tax fraud, not death.
it unlocked something, in gabe. a realisation that perhaps he isolated himself so badly that he thought his only friend left was the guy who sold him his drug. and that jarring thought lingered over the course of the following weeks. his therapist would be proud of him, sitting with his discomfort without trying to obsessively fix it. but maybe…
maybe there was a way to improve the situation, and accepting it wouldn’t (couldn’t!) be perfect anymore. and while still wondering if it had ever truly been his destiny to pursue a music career, gabe could at least admit that he liked it. he liked writing songs. he liked performing. he liked the band.
and maybe, after everything, that was reason enough to stay.
