Girls Aloud singer tells of fat jibe to band by X Factor judge Walsh
FORMER GIRLS Aloud member Kimberley Walsh has cited alleged comments from
television judge Louis Walsh as she told how insecurities about her weight crept into the earlier years of her career.
The Bradford-born singer said the reality show judge had once applauded the pop band for being “not fat any more” when they came to record their music video for the 2004 hit song
The 35-year-old mother told
newspaper: “Louis Walsh waltzed in and said to us, ‘Oh, none of you are fat any more! Brilliant, that’s great’. “I was like, “OK! There it is...’.” Ms Walsh also suggested that the Irish music industry manager’s in-studio remarks were influenced by the criticism levelled at fellow television pop music judge Nigel Lythgoe, when he publicly told singer and actress Kym Marsh on ITV talent show that she needed to lose weight. Girls Aloud were formed on the following year.
Ms Walsh said: “Obviously in Louis’s head he did have an issue with some of our sizes but I think he learnt from Nigel and thought best not to comment in public – but he did in private.
“That was the first time
Ithought, ‘OK, maybe my weight is an issue’.”
The singer said that Walsh was the only person to put image-based pressure on the band as they rose to fame with tracks such as and
The five-piece group, including Cheryl and Nadine Coyle, became one of the few UK reality television acts to achieve continued success, selling 4m albums in the UK alone, and going on to release the chart-topping album
before winding down in 2013.
Now a television presenter and performer, Ms Walsh, who is married to former Triple 8 boy band member Justin Scott, has spoken publicly about positive body image and her own weight loss regimes following the birth of her son Bobby.
Mr Walsh’s representative was approached following the singer’s claim but declined to comment.