Nicola Roberts
Nicola Maria Roberts (born 5 October 1985) is an English singer and songwriter. In 2002, Roberts was selected as a member of Girls Aloud, a pop girl group created through ITV's reality competition show Popstars: The Rivals. The group went on to receive large success, achieving a string of 20 consecutive UK top ten singles (including four number ones), two UK number one albums, five consecutive platinum selling studio albums, and receiving nominations for five BRIT Awards, winning Best Single in 2009 for "The Promise".
Nicola Roberts
- Singer
- songwriter
2002–present
Vocals
In 2011, Roberts released her debut solo studio album, Cinderella's Eyes, which peaked at number 17 on the UK Albums Chart. Its lead single "Beat of My Drum", debuted at number 27 on the UK Singles Chart. Two follow-up singles, "Lucky Day" and "Yo-Yo", both gained equally positive critical responses.
In February 2020, Roberts won the first series of ITV's The Masked Singer UK, masked as Queen Bee, and the following year, Roberts returned in the final of the second series as a guest judge.
Early life[edit]
Roberts was born on 5 October 1985 in Stamford, Lincolnshire, when her mother was 17.[1] At the time of her birth, her father was working for the RAF and the resulting pay led to financial struggles which saw her father move to work for the Ford Motor Company whilst her mother became a photographer to help the family monetary problems.[1] Roberts grew up in Runcorn, Cheshire.[1]
She attended St Chad's High School.[2] In school Roberts found herself shying away, in contrast to her home life where she was outgoing, even gaining the nickname 'Cilla' (after singer Cilla Black) from her family.[1] Academically, Roberts performed well, leaving with nine GCSEs, but she declared her dislike of school and began discussing a musical career which led her to work with several girl groups recording demo tracks in several cases.[3] Roberts acknowledged she had always wanted to be a singer and had been entering competitions and auditions with her father accompanying her and gaining support from other family members also.[4] In an interview with Closer magazine, Roberts spoke about how she began her musical career at a local disco, as part of a girl band called The 5 Musketeers.[5]
Music career[edit]
2002: Popstars: The Rivals[edit]
Still a teenager, Roberts auditioned for the reality television series Popstars: The Rivals. Participants checked into a hotel in Kensington, London, before performing to a panel of celebrity judges; Roberts found that, up to that point, she "didn't really have much life experience".[6] During the auditions she coincidentally sat next to Kimberley Walsh, who was to complete the competition to become one of five in the final line-up of the girl group; the two spent time rehearsing before their solo audition.[6] Roberts felt confident before the audition, but during the actual audition she was "terrified" and was unable to smile until celebrity judge Geri Halliwell complimented her performance stating "I think you're great, you're an individual, you really stand out".[7] Roberts found her clothing and personality were different from those of the other participants in Popstars: The Rivals; most were well-trained vocalists and were well-dressed, while her clothing was less fashionable, due to lack of funds, and she was not as vocally well-trained as the others.[7]
Having progressed in the competition, Roberts was left as one of 15 remaining participants but found that the reality show was becoming increasingly based on personality instead of vocals.[7] She found her personality to be more concealed than others', but was "confident" with her performances.[8] One notable incident during the competition was when a show-producer expressed to her mother that Roberts would not win, for she was not "outrageous" or as outgoing as others stating that vocals were secondary. This left her mother shocked by the politics of the show.[8] After the final ten participants were selected Roberts was eliminated from the competition, but in the following weeks after participant Nicola Ward quit, she was enlisted as a wild-card to return to the show – despite reservations from judge Louis Walsh, who did not back her return. However, he was overruled by judges Geri Halliwell and Pete Waterman.[9][5] Roberts then made it through to the final where she sang the track "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters. She was the second contestant to be selected for the group, after Cheryl Tweedy.[10] That night the group was formed, and a party involving promotional photographs saw their introduction to manager John McMahon, who would become more of a personal friend for the group.[11]
Roberts described her time on the show Popstars: The Rivals and her successes within the show:[12] "Every week before I went on stage I used to go to the toilet, to the same cubicle, and pray, just ask God to please let me have this. Even though I was confident in my singing ability, and I knew I had a stronger voice than most at the time same time I still had a little bit of insecurity because I'd been told Louis didn't want me. I was never in the bottom two, though, and the producers told me I always came in the top two or three in terms of votes each week, which was great."
Activism[edit]
Anti-tanning[edit]
At the start of her music career Roberts began to note that other girls were dressing more "glamorous" than she did, and at the age of 16 during her auditions for Popstars: The Rivals, she wished to look like them.[7] At these times she would feel unattractive due to her pale complexion, and soon began using fake tan to darken her skin tone into what she later described as a "dirty mess" but at the time made her feel more attractive.[18] Due to her pale skin tone Roberts found herself easily burning in the sun, which led to chronic pain; during the shoot of the Girls Aloud single "Love Machine" she had trouble filming due to severe burns which left her wanting to visit the hospital.[72] During her time with Girls Aloud she filmed a television special titled Passions for which she travelled to Taiwan where she learnt about natural skin products, something she had been interested in due to her pale complexion and led her to develop the make-up line Dainty Doll.[73] Following this Roberts began a stance against tanning, which saw her produce and star in a BBC Three investigative documentary titled Nicola Roberts: The Truth About Tanning in which she revealed her own personal tanning issues and those of men and women throughout the UK who have excessively used tanning beds.[74] She met with families of individuals who had died from melanoma,[74] which encouraged Roberts to become an advocate for the banning of underage usage of tanning beds. With the help of Julie Morgan, a member of the National Assembly for Wales, she produced a bill in support of the ban.[75] At the launch of the bill Roberts said "Going into the streets of Liverpool and interviewing the young girls who are obsessed with having a tan and feeling like they had to be brown to be seen as attractive, that whole mentality that they had gathered was just a bigger problem than I ever thought it was."[75]