The Hear’Say And Liberty X Feud That Changed British Pop

Before The X Factor, there was Popstars - the reality show that created Hear’Say, led to Liberty X and changed British pop culture overnight. Myleene Klass and Michelle Heaton share what really happened behind the scenes, from being thrown into overnight fame and branded winners and losers, to the press-fuelled rivalry between the two groups, the money they never saw and the mismanagement that helped bring it all crashing down. We're Talking Popstars! (00:00) Intro (00:30) How Michelle Was Cast on Popstars (03:41) What Happened After Popstars Ended? (06:33) How Liberty X Was Formed (10:44) The Manufactured Rivalry Between Liberty X and Hear'Say (13:54) The Rise and Success of Liberty X (15:54) How Myleene Klass Was Cast on Popstars (17:45) How Popstars Changed Myleene Klass's Life (21:49) The Wild West of the Music Industry in the 2000s (25:33) Why Hear'Say Split Up (29:06) Myleene Klass's Favourite Memory From Hear'Say Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Welcome to We're Talking. In this episode, I look back at Pop Stars with Michelle Heaton and Mylene Class, the early Naughties reality TV show that created Hear'Say, led to Liberty X, and changed British pop culture overnight.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  So how do you get on to Pop Stars?

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the Stude newspaper was a bi-weekly paper, newspaper, that listed all the auditions and what was happening in the industry. I remember it said, "Do you want to be the next five or six girls?" I think it said. "We're looking for a mixed group. Here's the open auditions." And I was like, "Right, right, I would need to save money for London." But actually, they came to Newcastle.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  So I went along to the audition. I had a song prepared. I was gonna sing "Everything I Do, I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams. That was like my go-to. So in that moment, it didn't feel too weird. There was a lot of production around, more than what I was used to.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  But it wasn't anything different.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  So the thought of it being a big, massive TV show hadn't been on our eyes then.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Because it was the first one.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  We hadn't seen anything like this before.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  That's true, because there's no X Factor at this time. Pop Stars was the first television, what do you call it, show that creates...

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Manufactured band.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  And so for me, it was another audition. And then you got through to the next round, and then you got given lyrics to sing. This chose, everybody just sing "Reach For The Stars" from S Club 7. What was different about this was that we were all singing in front of each other.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  I mean, I was used to closed auditions, whereas this was open. Everybody was there, sat behind you, and people cheering you along. And there was so much talent in that room. I thought I had absolutely no chance. And I wasn't a professional anything. I was a professional blagger. I still am. Like, I always say, "Fake it till you make it." Because I think a lot of people are like that. They just don't want to admit it. And then there was a weekend in Birmingham where there was the final 50.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  And then London, and then that was a week. And then there was the final 10.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Then the final 10. So now, was the show on air while you were going through?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  No. So it's pre-recorded?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  So it's all pre-recorded. And I had left my dancing gig at the nightclub to do this. And so about a week after they had their final 10, they come to our houses and tell us whether we're in or not. So obviously, I didn't get in. And it was six months before they aired the first episode. So we all signed a contract, obviously saying, you know, we wouldn't talk about it.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  So I couldn't say anything to anybody. And back then, you know, now I signed a DM, like, "Tell if you view." But obviously, I was like, I was scared. Like, I was scared about saying the wrong thing. So I didn't say anything to anybody, and I had to beg for my job back. They didn't want to give me my job back. And I was begging, because that was it.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Like, there was no money, you know?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  There was six, or five, six months of auditioning just ended, and then I'm back to square one.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  And I had no job, you know, no career. I was almost 21, and those were like, back in those days, the cutoff age at which they wanted people to audition.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  So I knew it was kind of like the end.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  On the show, then, on Pop Stars, you get to the final 10. And I find this very interesting, because I've talked to Mylene Class. She was in the final 10, right? And I understand what happens with her group. But tell me about what happens to you.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  And the forming of Liberty X, because I find this to be really interesting.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  I'm sure Kel is gonna tell me I've got it wrong, because I think I have got it slightly wrong. I live in a bit of a bubble as well, Paul, so I kind of imagine things.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Things differently. Okay. So how do you remember it?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  So I remember it as, we all stayed in touch, the other five, because the five in Hearsay blocked us.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Oh, really? But even before that?

• 4:56Speaker 02

  But they were probably told that.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Really?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  But at the time, we were sore.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  But even before that, though. So, because I wasn't here during that time.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Yes, okay, sure.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  So I've only seen clips. So then, the five that are then selected and when that group becomes Hearsay?

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  I would imagine they had a contract immediately.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  And they've become quite popular.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, huge, you know? There was about six months between me being told I wasn't in and when the first one was aired. And in that six months, I believe, obviously, Mylene would have had a better account of it. That's when they went somewhere, they got their set together.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  They learned dance routines, they recorded music, they did the whole PR thing, you know, changed their phone numbers, which I knew who was in it as well, because I tried to ring them straight after. And I see Nigel said I wasn't in. And obviously, they weren't picking up, because their phones were gone.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Ah, so this is where you think that they were told to block.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. 100%, yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  But why? I know that was a different time period, but why?

• 5:59Speaker 02

  I think it was just all to do with exclusivity and privacy and, you know, NDAs lying around and the fact that they... I don't know. I don't want to put words in their mouths. They can answer that. I don't know if they were told to, you know, block everybody, but we were. And so I believe, or I like to believe, that wasn't from then.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  It was from, you know, the voices above.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Management.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Because we all got on really well, and I wanted to ring Suzanne and, you know, and see how she got on and say, "Oh, my God, well done." And we didn't get the opportunity to do that, you know?

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  And so I would imagine that wasn't on them.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Okay, fair, fair. So then you are thinking about what your life is now going to be. What's it going to look like? So how does Liberty X come about?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  You know, we all stayed in touch. And then the time came around where ITV wanted us to come and do a bit of press for the show as the five losers. We weren't called the five losers by ITV, but we subsequently were called that henceforward. And I remember us, my memory of it, is that we got together the night before we were due to do Good Morning Britain or one of those shows, Lorraine. And we were at Kelly's apartment, and Tony had arranged an Irish phone interview for radio. And I remember we all started, they asked us to sing.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  So we all sang "Bridge Under Troubled Water," which was the song in which we sang at the auditions. They were like, "You guys should be a band." This is my fluffy memory of it. And so we were like, "Yeah, why not?" And so the next day, when we're live on TV and we sang that again, we said, "We want to be a band. We're gonna be a band." We didn't really know what that looked like. We was like, "Why not?" We weren't signed to ITV or Pop Stars. They never retained us.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  They let us go. That was like, that is basically the main reason why all of these participants in these shows henceforward are contracted to an inch of their life going forward, because they missed, they missed it with us.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  They let us go.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  So you're saying specifically because they missed your group?

• 8:28Speaker 02

  They missed an opportunity to micromanage and take commission from anybody else from that process or from that specific process.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  So Liberty X set a precedent now?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  And therefore, everyone gets signed?

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we were, you know, told throughout the whole process until that moment that the losers couldn't do anything. It was just the winners. It was just those five people. It was not us. We were done, and that was it. And so when we announced that we wanted to start as a band, it was news to them. And my fluffy, kind of rainbow-covered memory is that when we announced it, Richard Branson was watching the TV show we were on. I believe it was Lorraine, but Kelly said it was another one. And he rang Lorraine or got in touch with her somehow and said that he wanted, he loved

• 9:26Speaker 02

  the idea of an underdog, and he owned Virgin Records, V2 Records, and would love to sign us. And that was that day.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  And so I never left London. We, you know, over the course of the next few weeks, Lorraine also, the lovely Lorraine who's been with my personal journey throughout my whole time, she put us in contact with a manager, Gary, who subsequently became Liberty X's manager that day as well.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Incredible, okay.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  And we got management in the next few weeks, who then helped financially relocate us to London until we started getting money from our advances.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  And we signed, you know, a major record label.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  And it was Richard Branson. Like, over the course of just maybe a few weeks.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's incredible.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  And all of this happened, and I'm like, "This is mental." Like, we all thought this is absolutely insane. Like, we are literally in Richard Branson's house. We are at his record label, and we're doing a press conference. And he held me upside down, and Jessica, he poured champagne over her head, all in this unrealistic, like, distorted reality we are living right then, and it was mega.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. That's incredible. I don't know about the pouring the champagne over the head, but...

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  It all sounds, I mean, what also is surreal.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  You couldn't make it up.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can't make it up. And also, those stories don't happen. It feels like it doesn't happen anymore.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  It just doesn't happen.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Just you're on TV, he sees you.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  On TV.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  He's like, "Hey, I'm gonna sign you to a deal."

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. I want to ask you about this, is that I know that, who was it that called you all the flop stars?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Because that seemed like that was a title that stuck.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  From my memory, I believe it was Hearsay. But I think it was fueled by press.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  So ultimately,

• 11:40Speaker 02

  press were the ones who labeled us the names.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I see. And almost pinned you two against each other.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So there was a war from the get-go. As soon as we really thought we were going to be a band and start to release music, we were constantly battled against each other in a world that we were trying to navigate. You know, we didn't have, there were six months prior, like Hearsay had to adapt to what was coming and a team around them. You know, we were signed to an indie label effectively. And, you know, we weren't groomed. We, you know, we didn't, we didn't have that team. And so we felt like we were almost set out to the lions. You know, we didn't have media training.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  It was just, I think what, what the attraction was for Liberty, towards Liberty, we were only Liberty at the time, was that we were raw. And that was quite evident because we didn't know when to stop talking or what not to say. And we were on the fact that we were able to, we were able to bring our creative energy to what we put out there, which was, which usually doesn't happen, well, doesn't happen to manufactured bands, actually. But the press battled us and Hearsay off from the get-go. Flop Stars, wannabes, the Five Losers. And it was evident that they wanted us to fail. Not just, not just Hearsay as a team, but the people around them.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  And so that would have then stirred up the pot with the Hearsay members in order to, you know, add fuel to the fire when they did interviews about how they were bigger and better and we were not so. And that we were running on their court tails.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. How did, yeah, how did you feel? Because you were, these were your friends, you know, a few months prior when you were filming.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  It felt, it felt really harsh. We didn't know how to navigate it. It felt like it wasn't the five people that we met in the audition process. And, and, and along all of this, all I kind of wanted to do was reach out to Suzanne.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Because that's like one of the people that I got really close to and, and be like, how is it? Like, what's it like?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Like, I bet it's amazing. Like, I really wanted to share that with her. And at no point did I see what we were doing as hanging on their court tails. And I have to say, like, my, my, my skin's not, I say it's thick. It was really paper thin. If it wasn't for the rest of the Liberty X members, I don't think I would have got through it as well as I did. But we had each other. And, and that's, that's what made our strength, I think, as a band.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  You know, one thing about Liberty X, and I say Liberty X because it was, you were Liberty.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  And then was it some other group had Liberty or, I don't know?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, some, some man group got a bit sore of the subject and wanted their, wanted their name back. So they were Liberty. So I'm sure they've used it well. And so, yeah, they took us to court, you know?

• 14:47Speaker 01

  And then you become Liberty X.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Now, I, I think what, and, and I don't want to even stir up more issues between you and Hearsay.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  But, but I.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  As I can see Miley's picture in my, in my eyeline right here.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Because we love Hearsay here, right? But one thing I didn't realize was how successful Liberty X was, right? So Liberty X, you have now, so achieved international success. So the album featuring Just A Little, right? That single was the ninth best-selling single in 2002.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Right? That's major.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Also, the group, you had 10 consecutive UK top 20 singles. So is, is, is it, or should I say, am I correct in saying that Liberty X sold more than Hearsay?

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would be correct. Yep. Yeah, we did. We, we had three albums and we had a big massive sell-out tour. We won a Brit Awards for our song and for two album awards. And we, we won an Ivan Lobello Award. And so, yes, so putting it frankly, yeah. Ultimately, Liberty X were more successful than Hearsay.

• 16:19Speaker 03

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• 16:56Speaker 01

  The first question I have is that you're a classically trained artist. So at all are you thinking there's any shame doing pop? Does family place any shame on you for, for going in this direction?

• 17:10Speaker 02

  My dad was horrified that I'd given up a year's work as Mary Magdalene. And it's Mary Magdalene, don't forget.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  For six weeks in a band. I was told you'll get a six weeks' work in a band over Christmas. And I was like, that sounds fun.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  I had a culture shock because I was sitting in this room and everyone was crying. And everyone was unprepared and no one had learnt their lines or their songs. And they'd been given parts to learn. And you're going to be given different configurations and they're going to see which songs blend with which voices and learn the dance moves. And I could not get it in my head that nobody was learning it.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  And you.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  And that's not even Asian values. That's like Royal Academy and that's being in Miss Saigon and West End Theatre. And it's like, just the training is do the job that someone's asked you to do. But in so doing it, I nearly lost out. Because one day, the rehearsal pianist didn't show up. And that's how I got in the band. I was playing. I remember it was a certain member of Liberty X who was like, I don't know what I'm singing. I don't, I haven't cut my music. And I was like, I'll cut your music for you. And I cut it down to, I don't know, 20 bars. And I was playing it. And then Nigel Isco, Paul Adams, Nicki Chapman, they all walked in. Nigel said, you can play the piano, why didn't you say? And I was like, you never asked.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  That sealed the deal.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  All right, so you're now in the group. And your thought is that you're going to be a part of something for just a few weeks. And that's it. So help, for everyone who had not seen Pop Stars though, how does the show end? And then how does that catapult the group into the zeitgeist of, of the UK public?

• 18:50Speaker 02

  It's so weird because I wrote two years' worth of diaries around this entire experience. And when I read them back and when I look back at all of this, and then I match it up to what was going on, you know, on the outside, I suppose, looking in. I mean, it was fame like you could never, ever, you know, encounter. It was like parody. It was like something, a spinal tap or it was like the Beatles. People were coming to our shows and there were crushes at the signings. And it was overnight fame, selling millions of records that we'd only just heard the song ourselves. It was, it was pretty instantaneous.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  And I was so glad to have the rest of the band going through it at the same time. And so as much as we were all together all the time, probably driving each other nuts, also we became like family because it was just us. But we were at the absolute height. It was both the halcyon days of fame.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Because, I don't know, 25 million tuned in to see us become this band, get the number one and what happens now.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  It was 25 million tuned in?

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Yes, it was event viewing. It was just the beginning of the internet, the beginning of camera phones. Because we were, we were right at the very dawn of it. I remember it very clearly. Somebody first putting their phone in my face and Danny from the band going, oh my God, the phones have got cameras now. We're not safe. It was just, it was all happening at once. Because before that, we had the flip phones. We were like, we were, we were advertising the flip phones.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's practically, at that time, that's practically half the population of the UK. That's incredible.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Oh, it was, it's so, you know, I say it to my children now. Try to paint the picture for them, what it was like. But it was just, it was overnight fame and it was just huge.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  So pure and simple first, right? It debuts at number one in the UK charts. It becomes the fastest-selling debut single at the time, right? So sets a record for that. So can we speak to what actually happened behind the scenes? Here's when I, once again, I was not here. So I didn't live through it, but I've now experienced it.

• 21:06Speaker 04

  The culture of it.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  I've lived through the culture of it for sure. And I've lived, and I've now lived through the, through the research of it. And what I find to be so fascinating is I don't think I've ever seen a group go from obscurity to notoriety and then break up in such a short period of time.

• 21:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Because it was in essence, correct me if I'm wrong here, 2000, 2001.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  To 2002.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  About 18 months. I mean, we thought we were going to be bigger than you two. We didn't even get, I don't know. We got out of one territory. I think we got number one in New Zealand as well.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:44Speaker 04

  But now I know the nature of the beast and, and how it worked and how it operated. You know, it's that be careful what you wish for. We had everything, but we were also broke. We had these number ones, but you know, we didn't have the advance through yet. We didn't know how the business side of music worked. I knew music. I knew every chord. I knew some of the chords better than the producers working with us, but I didn't know business.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Did you have agents assigned to you?

• 22:08Speaker 04

  Oh, boy, did we have agents, but problem number two. It just is an industry, as we are learning, that can attract any facet of society, any, any kind of character. There is no graded scheme of entry. You can have a mate who's like, oh, do you know what? My brother drives cars and suddenly in the next thing you know, he's the, the driver. Next thing you know, he's the tour manager. Suddenly you can work your way up in a very different manner and you don't know, you know, no one's DBS checked. Nobody's, there's nothing.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:38Speaker 04

  It's just, it's not like, hi, I'm a brain surgeon. I'll have a go.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  It's a very different set of rules and operational skills. The music industry is the Wild West.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, when did you first recognize it was the Wild West? Because I would imagine that when you enter the show, you're still somewhat guarded. You're very optimistic about what's going to happen. You don't know how large you're going to be. And then as the notoriety comes, that's when graph, that's when, um, should I say, uh, leeches come.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Right? But what was the first moment where you realized, oh my God, what am I doing here? What's going on? What, what, what, what is this?

• 23:21Speaker 04

  I mean, there were so many of those epiphanies that it was just relentless. I think it was when the gloves came off, when anyone could say anything they wanted to about your families. I found information where they were trying to find out about my family in the Philippines. You know, really digging deep. And you are then answerable to all those people. You have a responsibility. So you're not now just singing pure and simple, all three and a half minutes of it on stage and learning the dance routines. You're now trying to look after your family. There's people coming out that suddenly they need money. I mean, I never knew I had so much family. It was suddenly like.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Interesting. So people coming out the woodwork.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Best friends that you hadn't spoken to, everybody, you know, it. And it's a lot, it's a lot for young minds to deal with.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  On top of the constant scrutiny, the body image scrutiny, sexuality, who you're with, who you're not with, what you said, what you didn't say.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  So who do you trust at this time?

• 24:28Speaker 04

  Only each other, only each other.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  I mean, my hands are tied because there's so much I would love to say to you, but obviously there was other forces at, at play as well with phone tappings and things. But I guess you can read between the lines that the only time we could really be really safe is when we're just talking to each other. But then you imagine five of us, trauma bonded, all going through the same thing, all terrified that each other's secrets or family secrets or worries or woes.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  And, and sometimes those stories would be fake. Sometimes those stories would be planted. Sometimes those stories, yeah, are, are, are used to cover up something else. Like you never know what's true.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  Well, you've got to remember, no agent is, is a lone shark. All agents, you know, they might have other bands. So all you need to do, if you're really, if you really want to start getting into it, is match up which agent has which bands. And match up which person got protected. And suddenly it all starts to make sense. And then suddenly you start realizing, well, who is, who's playing what?

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Who's playing?

• 25:34Speaker 04

  Which role? Yeah.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  So is it, did you feel protected during that time?

• 25:39Speaker 04

  We were not protected. We were not protected. We were almost bait, I would say. I had been screwed over by agents, managers, dodgy accountants.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Can we talk about the, the end of, of the group before it disbanded?

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Because it was one thing that I read is that, you know, there were moments where you were touring and as you said, it's people, it's thousands upon thousands showing up, cheering you on.

• 26:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  But then there were moments towards the end where it weren't cheers all the time.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  No, I remember someone throwing chicken charmeine at me. That's how the, the racism came back in again on stage, things like that. Yeah. Or, um, nobody showing up, no manager, no tour manager. I remember my brother, because he wasn't old enough to rock, to, to drive, getting on his bike to drop off a dat tape so that we could perform.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  The group, so the Greek could perform.

• 26:33Speaker 04

  We, I got told by my manager, because I said, the backdrop's really creased. What are we going to do? And he went, you're going to have to iron it. Have you ever seen how big a backdrop is?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Literally, you're going to have to iron.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  You're going to have to iron it. I'm like, where are you? Turned out he was where he shouldn't have been, so that I had a phone call from his wife. That's how hearsay ended. It fizzled. It just was left, it was just left to die. I closed it out, I turned the lights out.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Literally.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  I, I literally turned the lights out and it was heartbreaking because at the time I didn't want it to end. I was, it was, we took a vote. Everything was about a vote and I've made peace with it now because I realized that we're all kids. None of us, none of us were in control of it, but I didn't want it to end. But the vote was yes. And I remember walking into a meeting where one guy said, we've got 250,000 Easter eggs with your faces on them. What, what are we going to do? And I was like, I don't know. Like it almost, it was almost comical. What, I haven't got an answer.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  As to what you're going to do with 250,000. But I can imagine, because if I'm on the receiving end now and I've put all my money into this group and they can't get their act together. And I've, and I've invested all this money and Easter's on the way.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Then, but, but how does the group go on this demise so quickly? Because so I understand the pressure being placed. I understand that the agents are, are not consistent. I understand all of those aspects, but at the same time, it was like, it was consistent hits. The debut album reached number one and sold over a million copies. So you were red hot. The group was red hot. How does it fall off so quickly?

• 28:18Speaker 04

  I think we just didn't have anyone who was solidifying us as a group. So at the time, it's, it's, yeah, the same old story, but it was major mismanagement. Because as a mom now, I know that you have to rally the troops.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  And if you've got people going off in different directions, as a mom, someone's got to bring you all back together and go, right? This is what we're doing. This is when we're doing it. What does the group need? You're only as strong as the weakest performer person, personality, whatever's going on there with that person. And in that moment, you carry them. And when I look back at what was going on, we wouldn't, we were not, we were not a solid unit and we were not being encouraged to be either. So if there was a cheeky booking here and there was a, a shoot here, well, if I'm the manager and I'm like, well, let's bring in the money. I'd just send everyone out on all of these separate gigs. And in so doing, you then cause division in the ranks.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  I see.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, everyone had come from humble beginnings. Not one person in that band had some privileged upbringing. And so that was taken advantage of. And, and rather than seeing the power of the group, we were divided.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  I see. Can you disclose how much you made during that period?

• 29:37Speaker 04

  It's not a patron one I make now because it was split between five, the band. Then it was split with the manager, six. Then it was split with the record company, seven. Then it was split with the TV company, eight. Then you bring in tax. I mean, all those people that were trying to take advantage of us. They did it with our time and our image and, and they obviously took their cut. But we weren't making the amount of money that people think we were.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  I mean, we, we've just talked about a lot of challenging moments, right? In that 18 months, but I would imagine there were some incredible moments.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Oh, dude, we sang with Steve Wonder. We, we sang with Lionel Richie.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 30:16Speaker 04

  We sang with Lionel Richie.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  He walked out on stage and one of us cried and one of us, we were just, I was just, it's Lionel Richie. It's like, I played the piano for Shaka Khan. It's like, you know, all the things you dream of doing and then you're doing them.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  It's just magical and that's what makes it worth it.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  What was the most, I mean, performing with Lionel Richie, playing for Shaka Khan. I mean, those are, those are up there. Was there anything that you think this is like, this is what I will tell my grandchildren, this moment?

• 30:49Speaker 04

  Okay, so the very first concert that I ever went to was my own and it was at Wembley. So when I said, hello, Wembley, I couldn't even get the words out because it was just magic.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  And if you want to hear the full, unfiltered stories from today's guest, you can check them out on the We Need to Talk page. Drop a like, leave a comment and hit subscribe. See you next week.