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A jaw-dropping two-part BBC Two documentary coming to the small screen delves into the dizzy highs and dark lows of some of the biggest girlbands of the 90s. laying bare shocking revelations - from cruel fat-shaming to aborted babies. Girlbands Forever explores not only the hordes of adoring fans, swanky hotels and sold-out stadiums, but a very different era in which record companies had barely heard of the term ‘duty of care’, and seemed to care little for stars’ mental health. Featuring powerful insights from members of Sugababes, Atomic Kitten, Eternal, Mis-teeq and Little Mix , it pulls back the veil on exactly what it meant to be in a successful girlband in the Nineties and early Noughties. Created by veteran broadcaster Louis Theroux and following last year’s equally eye-opening three part-documentary about boybands, one of its most incredible testimonies comes from All Saints singer, Melanie Blatt. Melanie, 50, claims that she was pressured into getting an abortion at the height of the band’s fame - alongside her bandmate, Nicole. The Never Ever singer, who was expecting a baby with Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender at the time, maintains she was told that having a baby would ‘ruin’ the band. She said: ‘I hadn’t been with my partner for very long, it was definitely a surprise. It wasn’t people congratulating us. It was more like this look of dread and worry and the realisation that things are going to change.’ After landing in Los Angeles at one point, where the band were also enjoying fame, she added, ‘At the airport LAX our manager, he was behind us, was telling us to abort our babies.’ Melanie went on to have her daughter, Lilyella on November 20, 1998, the same month All Saints bagged the MTV Europe Music Award for best breakthrough artist. Nicole, however, chose to terminate her pregnancy , a bombshell revealed in 2002 autobiography Under The Bridge, penned with bandmate and sister, Natalie. Dating Robbie Wiliams at the time, the former Take That star’s biopic Better Man even shows the former couple decorating the nursery together - before Nicole’s management stepped in. In the 2002 book, she revealed: ‘Robbie put his hand on my belly and told me “This baby is saving my life”, adding, “After having my abortion, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I wanted to kill myself.’ She added: ‘Afterwards, everyone pretended it hadn’t happened. I was too scared for confrontation. I am only now starting to get my confidence back. But writing about it made me confront it all. I’m so glad I did it. But Melanie’s isn’t the only shocking story to come out of those heady days of Cool Britannia - where the world was gripped by girl power, particularly in the form of Baby, Sporty, Scary, Ginger and Posh, aka, the Spice Girls. Eternal legend and occasional Loose Woman Kéllé Bryan, s just 15 when she signed her first record deal recalls how, behind the scenes, she was encouraged to lose weight during the peak of the band’s fame - admitting ‘Everything we ate was controlled.”’ As she told the Mirror , "Stylists would come along and say 'this doesn't fit you',.... They sent us away to this place in the countryside where they were controlling what we ate. When I look back on it, you think that was crazy, but it’s what they did." Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton also paints a bleak picture of just how much pressure she and her bandmates were under - from feeling like she’d got the best job in the world, she found herself dealing with punishing tours, frayed friendships and, like Kelle, worries about her figure. “I’m hoping with this documentary that people will realise it was all smoke and mirrors,” the Liverpudlian mum-of-five told the Mirror. “If we were doing a video shoot there’d be certain fat-burning supplements that we would take to try and get like a six-pack,” says Natasha. “No one forced us to do that, but obviously body image was very skewed back then. We got six-packs in three days. I would never do that now.” Natasha also fell pregnant at 19 with first child Josh, but initially kept her pregnancy secret from her manager. Having worked through her pregnancy, Natasha was given six weeks off to recover when Josh was born by C-section. “I am basically a child having a child,” Mirror. “I don’t know anything about pre- and post-pregnancy. I was on tour the whole of my pregnancy. So when I’m told, ‘OK, you can have six weeks off and then come back and do a show,’ I’m just like, ‘OK.’” Another former Atomic Kitten singer, OK! columnist Kerry Katona also contributes to the show. Admitting it wasn’t just about pop stardom for her, but a means of escape from a tough upbringing and a way to finally feel loved’ - she confesses that her time in the bubble of 90s girl pop was traumatic, in parts. “‘I still get PTSD from it. Back then I had so many skeletons in my closet, with the glamour modelling, the foster homes, the refuges, the drug abuse. You were made to feel like your career would be ruined, that you've f***ed everything up.” Girlbands Forever is on BBC Two on Saturday 1 November at 9.20pm * Follow Mirror Celebs on Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .
