Belinda Chapple - 'THERE ARE STILL A FEW SCARS'

THE FORMER BARDOT SINGER GETS CANDID ABOUT HER TIME IN THE BAND AND WHY SHE DECIDED TO SPILL ALL

- Sara Tapia

When Belinda Chapple arrives for her photoshoot with WHO, the face at the door is one many will recognise – having graced our screens during her stint on Australia’s inaugural reality show Popstars in 2000. And while the 48-year-old is a total professional as the camera starts snapping away, when we sit down to chat later on, she admits her smile is one that has hidden some dark secrets. “There are still, if I’m brutally honest, a few little scars,” Chapple admits of her time on the show and in the resulting girl band, Bardot.

Once you’ve had a chance to read her recently released memoir, The Girl in the Band, it’s clear to see why. Chapple, alongside her former bandmates Tiffani Wood, Sally Polihronas, Katie Underwood and Sophie Monk, were the first stars of this now beloved entertainment genre. And with that inevitably came some major teething issues. From Bardot’s unrelenting schedule to unjust contracts and the ultimate betrayal which spelled the end of the band, Chapple has admitted that she certainly “came to know the injustice of the Australian music industry”.

“It was quite an interesting time in Australian television and we did have that number-one rating TV show,” she tells WHO. “I think the country was invested in us because they watched us get picked and go through the audition process, and then we just disappeared overnight. So I think that it’s an interesting story.”

Although Chapple didn’t make it out of that “almost soul-destroying” time in her life unscathed, she soon found solace in documenting her experience. “I wrote the book probably two years after the fact,” she explains of her memoir. “For me, that was part of my healing … to write, dump down everything that happened.”