Sunday Brunch: Claire Richards reveals what she did before Steps

Behind the cheesy smiles, dance routines and peppy pop lurked a world of pain that had fans gawping in shock when it was revealed.

Steps were launched in 2007 and after staggering success split in 2001. Ten years later all their dirty linen was very publicly aired in a 2011 four-part documentary Steps: Reunion.

More than a decade of anger, betrayal and resentments poured out, but in a powerful new podcast, Claire has said it didn’t have to be that way.

She opened up about her own personal agonies and described the final original years with the band as being like trapped in the jungle in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

She also pointed out what we all so easily forget about her time in the band.

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Claire was talking on Vicky Pattison’s The Secret To… podcast and reminded everyone of how young she had been when it all started.

Straight out of school, she was 17 when she was scouted for her first girlband TSD in 1995. Two years later she was in Steps and suddenly an instant pop star.

She said: “I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know how to be an adult. I was only 23-24 when the band split. I lived with my mum and dad still. My mum did my washing. I didn’t even know how to pay a bill.”

Steps brought instant fame and (eventually) some fortune, Claire says, from the release of the 1998 single One For Sorrow onwards. But, as we are all increasingly aware, the life of pop stars, especially manufactured ones, can be punishing.

She said: “You feel like you don’t have a choice, we went and did whatever we were told do. I think that’s why so many bands go. ‘I can’t do it anymore.'”

Relentless recording, appearances, promotional duties and touring quickly took their toll: “We’d normally have Christmas off but we were constantly (working)… And you’re often living in a tour bus which is a small space. It was very intense.”

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Claire said it’s natural tensions would build: “You know when you’re in somewhere like the [I’m a Celebrity] Jungle or Big Brother, everything is exacerbated to such a massive thing because you can’t get away from it. It can be the most stupid thing but you get so wound up by it. That’s what it was like…

“When you spend that amount of time with people… Your family get on your nerves sometimes… Sometimes if you are feeling quieter and someone is being extra, you can’t step away from it because you have a day full of work…

“I think the reason why H and I left in the end, was a build-up of all that.”

We now know that the split was ugly, with the group dividing into two bitterly divided side, H and Claire on one and Faye, Lisa and Lee on the other.

Looking back, Claire thinks it could have been very different: “If we’d had a break it might not have been as bad as it was when we split.”

Instead, the quickly launched H and Claire was a bitter disappointment: “H and Claire ended disastrously. We had three top 10 singles but then the album didn’t really chart very high. I was traumatised by that. I was so embarrassed… I thought everyone would be applauding because, It serves them right.'”

Claire added: “The last lot of stuff we had to do, I just said ‘I’m not doing it. I can’t. I’m too embarrassed.’ After that, I kind of went into hiding, I suppose, and just didn’t do anything for years.

“I didn’t do anything until I was pregnant with my son, and I was nearly 30. For a good five or six years I did nothing at all. I didn’t sing for ten years after. It was a weird old time.

“After the wedding and everything, I remember sitting down and being like ‘Oh, I don’t know what to do with myself’. And I probably just sat on the sofa for a couple of years. It took me a long time to work out who I was going to be, where I fit in the world.”

LISTEN TO VICKY PATTISON INTERVIEW CLAIRE RICHARDS HERE

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