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'Magic Johnson Took Me To MCA Records': Willa Ford On Her Pop Music Career & 'Flip It Like Disick'

(CBS Local)-- Willa Ford has lived a few different lives during her career.

It all started when the pop star became an overnight sensation with her song "I Wanna Be Bad" in 2001. Almost 20 years later, Ford now has her own interior design business called WFord Interiors and will be opposite Scott Disick on a new show from E! called "Flip It Like Disick." It took Ford a long time to process the rise and fall of her music career and everything else that happened around it.

"I grew up on a farm and all of the sudden there was this influx coming at me," said Ford in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "I was just trying to meet every deadline and see every person. When I finally took a step back and looked at all of it, I was exhausted and my mind was blown. It was an incredible experience at 20."

The Sit-Down: Willa Ford by CBS Local News on YouTube

Ford's new show premieres August 4 and it will follow the former musician and Disick as they revamp and transform houses all over California. While Ford has had a lot of people help her along the way in music and interior design, one of the most instrumental was NBA Hall of Famer and former Los Angeles Lakers guard Magic Johnson.

"I was in a performing group and worked my way up," said Ford. We were performing on a stage at something and a man was in the audience and asked to meet me after the show. He said can you sing something really quickly and he pulled out the SkyTel speaker phone and he opened it and I sang. The guy on the other line said fly her and her mom out. It was actually Magic Johnson on the other line. Magic Johnson took me into MCA's office and said sing. I sang Whitney Houston "One Moment In Time" and they signed me."

Ford's smash "I Wanna Be Bad" sold over 250,000 copies and was top 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. Looking back on everything now, Ford believes that age played a serious role in her short music career.

"The challenge was that I was really young," said Ford. "I look at artists now and I see how mature and developed they are at 20, but I still know they are only 20. As much as you think you know at that age, and at that age I thought I knew everything, you just don't. The real challenges come down to age and maturity. I don't know that there was a moment when I was totally done. I like to control things and I was now in a world where I wasn't in control of my destiny. I like to wake up every morning with a purpose that the work I'm doing is getting me to the next level. I just felt like I was stuck and wasn't fulfilled and then was designing on the side where I was fulfilled."

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