Sugababes star Keisha Buchanan has revealed she changed to become a member of the girl group in 2009 via text.
The 39-year-old singer drew thousands at Sugababes’ Glastonbury in June with the remnants of the current and original line-up Keisha, Mutya Buena, and Siobhán Donaghy.
Having met as children, the three girls were just 15 when the single Overload was released, and Keisha now looks back at the beginning of her career.
‘I didn’t leave, I changed,’ Keisha announced her exit in 2009 on an episode of The Receipts podcast. ‘He told me the band had broken up. He said he didn’t want to continue.
‘I got a text message and it pretty much just said they don’t like the band anymore, and so that’s what I understand.’
Keisha was in LA shooting the music video for About A Girl when she found out she had been replaced by Jade Ewen and kicked out of the group – she was the only original member at the time, as Heidi Range replaced Siobhán in 2001 and Amelle Berrabah replaced Mutya in 2005 .
“I will never forget when I saw this paparazzi and I thought who is it for, because at the height of my career I was going to ride the bus, the tube, everything,” he recalled.
‘Then when I got in a taxi and got home, everyone was acting like something had happened, and on the front of the paper it was like, “The Sugababes have broken up here is the new lineup.” I wasn’t told it was going to be really hard.’
Keisha then explained that when she was 25 years old, she questioned everything, including her friends in the industry and her own identity, having been associated with the group since childhood when it was formed at the age of 12.
After just one year in the spotlight, the ever-changing group experienced a change when Siobhán left.
“It was a very difficult time because Siobhan and I weren’t very close when we were young, it was like shaking,” Keisha recalls.
‘I think that we don’t have the infrastructure around us like, “Okay, you’re special, you’re special, you’re special,” I think it’s disappointing because if you have a younger sibling. or brother, you know when the children are squabbling you bring them together not apart.
“But unfortunately we didn’t have it, so it wasn’t a good atmosphere. It became clear after he left quite quickly that Heidi came in.’
While she is now back to the original trio, Keisha noted that during the initial ‘shakeup’ period, it was very difficult for the girls as a band as well as for the fans.
He said: “You don’t have months and months of people saying they want to leave, so while the fans are going through it, we’re also trying to figure out what to do, but when we come back, we’re back. number one Freak Like Me.
‘From there, it just became a massive commercial.’
The next line-up improvement came in 2005 when Mutya left the group, which was the most profound for Keisha as the pair had been together since they were eight or nine years old in grade school. Despite this, working together took them far.
‘I’m a mess. That broke me the most,” said Keisha, adding: “We were besties growing up together and then in the band over the years we became more colleagues.
‘But it’s not just being colleagues because we’ve known each other before. A sister’s love is always there and never changes. ‘
24 years after they originally bagged the first hit single together Keisha, Mutya and Siobhán performed together as the original iconic trio once again.
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