Inside the bust ups, meltdowns & exploitation endured by 90s girlbands ahead of bombshell 3-part doc by Louis Theroux
IT’S the highly-anticipated documentary set to lift the lid on the explosive drama among Britain’s best-known girl bands.
Three-parter Girlbands Forever, featuring top interviewer Louis Theroux, starts filming within weeks and will hit screens later this year.
It will look back at this phenomenal musical era of the Nineties and Noughties, with all its highs and lows. Groups already contacted to take part in the programme include the Spice Girls, Girls Aloud, All Saints, Atomic Kitten, Sugababes and Eternal.
As well as bust ups, meltdowns and exploitation, the women faced more intense scrutiny than their male counterparts, not to mention navigating the era of lads’ mags.
In particular, there’s likely to be a focus on band members who quit their group, including Eternal’s Louise Redknapp, Kerry Katona of Atomic Kitten and, of course, Geri Halliwell, who left the Spice Girls.
It’s understood they have all been invited to appear in the mini series and will likely jump at the chance.
The show was given the green light by the BBC following the huge success of Boybands Forever, which touched on the experiences of groups including East 17, 5ive, Damage and 911.
The outstanding contribution, however, came from Robbie Williams as he discussed his fractious time in Take That, particularly vying with his former rival Gary Barlow and their manager, Nigel Martin-Smith.
But if the experience revealed by the boys was a shock, wait till you hear what the girls have to say.
Here, TV Editor Rod McPhe takes an exclusive first look at the groups in the spotlight . . .
All Saints
DESPITE being one of the coolest girl bands of the Nineties, there were always simmering tensions during their five acrimonious years together.
After five No1 singles, they split in 2001.
Band members Nicole and Natalie Appleton, who are sisters, would eventually go on to create their own pop duo, simply named Appleton.
The other stars – Shaznay Lewis and Melanie Blatt – saw themselves as the musical element of the group, whereas the Appleton sisters were “The Glamour Twins”.
Nicole once recalled of their clashes: “Sometimes it was fighting, sometimes just ignoring each other. We would just go into a room and not speak. It was separate hair, separate rooms, separate flights, separate everything.”
The final straw was apparently an argument over a coat at a photoshoot.
But there were more serious traumas at the height of their fame, too.
Nicole terminated her pregnancy with then-boyfriend Robbie Williams which, she claimed, was at the behest of her record company. She also dated Liam Gallagher, which led to major scrutiny.
The star said of her partying days: “You see women having a good time and they are slated. Men do it and they get bonus points.
“I was young and single. All I did was try to have the best time of my life.”
Atomic Kitten
FROM the moment they formed in 1998, there were huge tensions between the trio.
Atomic Kitten began as Kerry Katona, Liz McClarnon and Heidi Range but within a year, Heidi left to join Sugababes and was replaced by Natasha Hamilton.
Kerry once recalled: “I remember some of the fights we had in Atomic Kitten back in the day.
“Once, Liz punched me from behind after we had a little row. I was furious and got my own back. I stamped on her feet on stage while singing Whole Again.”
Kerry quit the group in 2001 after falling pregnant with her then-husband, Westlife singer Brian McFadden, which required managers to hurriedly replace her in the video for Whole Again, which went straight to No1.
Jenny Frost, who hated Kerry, took her spot in the line-up. She once said she would “rather eat her own kidney with a spoon” than work with her predecessor.
And Kerry fumed: “I’m not going to get into a slanging match over the Kittens, but Jenny got the opportunity of a lifetime when she took over from me.
“They were number one when she joined the band but it was my voice on the record.” As if that wasn’t enough, Kerry allegedly called Natasha “a toxic c***”.
Spice Girls
THEIR debut single Wannabe shot to No1 in June 1996 – and Girl Power made the fab five all-conquering chart-toppers.
But cracks started to appear when Geri Halliwell quit the group less than two years later.
Apparently, it was due to a desire to pursue solo work, as well as particularly intense relationships with bandmates.
Geri was once struck in the face as she tried to break up a barney involving Mel B and Mel C in Los Angeles. The latter later accused Scary Spice of bullying her at the height of their fame.
Mel C – aka Sporty Spice – also revealed how, during her time in the band, she battled anorexia, which left her feeling suicidal.
Despite this, she still went on to enjoy an impressive solo career that, awkwardly, eclipsed that of the other Spice Girls, even though Emma Bunton – known as Baby Spice – and Mel B both made decent stabs at chart success.
Meanwhile, Posh Spice Victoria became arguably the most famous band member after marrying footballer David Beckham in 1999, not to mention becoming a style icon in her own right.
The Spice Girls released one album as a foursome in 2000, some three years after making 1997’s Spiceworld. They split up shortly afterwards, seemingly struggling to get past Geri’s departure and the bitterness it created between her and Mel B.
Girls Aloud
THE story of the chart champs is one of the great rollercoaster rides in pop history.
Formed on TV talent show Pop Stars: The Rivals in 2002, they faced the toughest challenge of all the modern girl groups, as the growth in social media put them under intense scrutiny. They split in 2009, with Nadine Coyle the first to pursue a solo career – but it didn’t go quite to plan.
Instead, it was Cheryl Tweedy who had the greatest success with hits including Fight For This Love, before landing her high-profile judging gig on The X Factor from 2008.
The girls reunited in 2013 but then – according to Nadine – bandmates Cheryl, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh decided that would be the end of the group.
She said: “I didn’t want the band to end. On the very last night of the tour, our management and publicist came up and said the girls wanted to split up. I was thinking, ‘What?!’ ”
But Cheryl later claimed Nadine was “full of s**t” and accused her of holding the group to “ransom”. She said: “She was the one who wanted to make a solo record. Which is why we took the hiatus.”
The bickering was put into sombre perspective in 2021 when founder member Sarah died of cancer aged, just 39.
Eternal
THEY had a string of hits after forming in 1992 but faced their first setback when Louise Nurding – now Redknapp – quit the group to pursue a solo career in 1995.
The band, which continued featuring Kelle Bryan and sisters Easther and Vernie Bennett, were “gutted” by her exit.
But Louise revealed she left because she was “miserable and homesick”.
Then, in 1998, Kelle was controversially dismissed by the Bennett sisters in a fax from their solicitor, claiming “a breakdown in professional relations”.
The siblings continued as a duo, but the hits dried up and they seem to have split in the year 2000, after last being seen on BBC One’s Songs Of Praise.
Almost a quarter of a century later, the women’s differences are still obvious.
Louise, Kelle and the Bennetts were set to reunite, but the deal died in 2023 when the sisters refused to perform at LGBTQ events due to their Christian beliefs.
Sugababes
PERHAPS the greatest indication of the rows behind the scenes was the fact that, within 11 years of being formed, not a single original Sugababes member was still in the band.
They started in 1998 as Mutya Buena, Keisha Buchanan and Siobhan Donaghy, but gradually became Jade Ewen, Amelle Berrabah and Heidi Range. That trio disbanded in 2011.
At the root of the musical chairs was the belief by record company execs that the Sugababes were not a group of people but a brand to be treated accordingly.
Siobhan quit after their first single charted in 2000, claiming Keisha was a bully who made her life “a living hell”.
In 2005, Mutya left too after she suffered postnatal depression following the birth of her daughter. She said: “What would have been perfect is if the girls had left me a tiny bit alone.
“If they’d just given me more time, I’d love to still be in the Sugababes.”
Then, in 2009, Keisha left after bullying claims were levelled at her once more, but she claimed: “I have confidence issues.”
Eventually, all the friction and tension came to eclipse the band’s work, and when the 2011 split happened, Jade admitted: “There was so much drama surrounding the group that I think the music just got lost . . . we kind of fizzled out about two years ago.”