Tiffani Wood, Katie Underwood, Sally Polihronas, Sophie Monk and Belinda Chapple of the pop group Bardot. Photo / Getty Images
Tiffani Wood, Katie Underwood, Sally Polihronas, Sophie Monk and Belinda Chapple of the pop group Bardot. Photo / Getty Images
For over 20 years, the rapid rise and sudden split of iconic girl group Bardot has been one of the biggest mysteries in Australia’s music industry.
Now, a former member of the pop group is lifting the lid on what really happened in a bombshell book that’s half memoir andhalf “cautionary tale”.
Belinda Chapple’s The Girl in the Band is the ultimate fan read, telling the story of a pop act that conquered the world for two years and has left behind a string of burning questions since, such as: Why was Chantelle Barry really booted out of Bardot? Why did Katie Underwood ditch the band after less than a year? And why did they break up out of the blue another year later – a split that left many of the members noticeably upset during their televised farewell show?
The book is said to answer all of these juicy head-scratchers, as well as uncover more gasp-inducing revelations, most of them delving into the financial exploitation Chapple and bandmates Underwood, Sophie Monk, Sally Polihronas and Tiffani Wood faced during their musical success.
Chapple began writing the tell-all book a few years after the band broke up. However, the project developed a shelf life over the years, with the former singer never feeling quite “brave” enough to tell her story. Now, she has seemingly worked up the courage.
“People love real stories, true stories. And I thought, ‘What have I got to lose? Let’s just do it’,” she told news.com.au.
“People love real stories, true stories. And I thought, ‘What have I got to lose? Let’s just do it’." Photo / Getty Images
However, not everyone will be a fan of the book. Having mostly lived a low-key life since Bardot, Chapple is notably nervous about the interest some of these never-before-heard stories might generate and how her former bandmates might feel.
She’s keen to stress she harbours no resentment towards people who may come across badly in the memoir – namely Barry, who was kicked out of the group after stealing from her new bandmates, and Sophie Monk, whose ambitions for a solo career in the limelight effectively ended Bardot for good two years later.
The moment that shocking secret came to light is one of the book’s most astonishing: Monk, who had already signed a deal to go solo, sitting on one side of the desk in their manager’s office, while he notified the three other members of the girl band Bardot was done and their services were no longer needed. The bitter ending created a fallout between Chapple and Monk, who had until then been her closest mate in Bardot. The rift was never mended.
While eagle-eyed fans would be right in assuming members of Bardot were not being offered particularly lucrative deals, it is still hard to believe their scanty earnings in that first year: A$35 (NZ$28) a day per diem. Each member received their pay in an envelope at the end of each week – however, Chapple revealed sometimes the girls would open the envelopes to discover they’d been shortchanged, despite the already tiny amount.
The question on everyone’s minds: how much was the Popstars money-making machine bringing in? Chapple heard rumours later on that the girl group’s gross profits from that first year – including advert sales from the Popstars TV show, record sales, merch, gigs and appearance fees – came in at roughly AU$27 million (NZ$29.37m).
All smiles in 2000, but Bardot's sudden split two years later was "traumatic". Photo / Getty Images
One revealing chapter in the book details the moment after the girls had signed yet another lucrative brand endorsement deal, this time with clothing brand Bardot. They quickly discovered they wouldn’t be making a dime from it – saying that they would have have been more financially prosperous if they got jobs in a Bardot store, rather than being in the Bardot pop group.
The girl group’s huge in-store signing events were another reminder everyone but them was financially benefitting from Bardot.
“It hit home to us when we were sitting there signing albums for three hours straight, in every state, with a sea of people,” Chapple said, adding that, back in the day, every single person in line had paid around $30 (NZ$32.63) to take home an album. “And we’d look at each other and just go, ‘Wow, we’re making a lot of money … and we’re not seeing a cent of it. It was tough.”
"We’d look at each other and just go, 'Wow, we’re making a lot of money … and we’re not seeing a cent of it. It was tough.” Photo / Getty Images
Their debut album and single Poison both shot to double-platinum status in the blink of an eye, with combined sales of almost 300,000 copies – and still, the group members received envelopes containing pocket change to live on every week.
The stark contrast in paydays felt embarrassing for the girls, whose humiliation kept them quiet, while their friends were in awe of their life-changing musical success and fast transformation into Aussie pop stars.
“Fans would say to us, ‘Oh, you guys must be rolling in it now, it must be amazing!’ We didn’t say anything. We didn’t go, ‘No, we’ve got no money.’ We’d just sort of laugh uncomfortably and hope that they didn’t keep talking about,” Chapple recalled.
“It’s surprising that we toed the line so much … but we were young.”
