Kimberley Walsh has revealed she and Girls Aloud are closer than ever now that they’ve had time to sit back and think of their wild ride to fame since they were formed in 2002
Kimberley Walsh and her Girls Aloud bandmates are “closer” than ever. Following their sell-out tour last year, Kimberley has opened up about how the band’s friendships have changed and their “crazy” past together.
The band, formed on Popstars: The Rivals in 2002, went on to become one of the biggest-selling girl bands of all time, selling more than 8.3 million records in the United Kingdom alone. But with each high came the lows, with rumours of feuds amongst the band, they still continued to dominate the charts before they officially disbanded in 2013 after their Ten: The Greatest Hits Tour in the same year, celebrating their decade in music.
Now, Bradford-born Kimberley has opened up about their recent tour, which celebrated two decades of dominating the charts, performing up and down the country on the completely sold-out tour. The singer turned actress, who has appeared on TV and on the West End, said she “loved” touring and being with Cheryl Tweedy and Nadine Coyle, who are also mums, brought the band closer than ever before, and that it’s brought them “closer together.”
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“We were just kids. We grew up together and experienced something crazy together. Now we are mums. We all have our own kids, and they are all our priorities. We mainly chat about the kids. Nadine and I both have kids who are starting secondary school in similar areas,” she told The Sun.
Kimberley added: “Times have changed, but we are still leaning on each other and supporting each other. I feel lucky to have such a special bond in my life.”
Back in July, Kimberley told The Mirror about the tour in more detail, particularly about taking her children. The singer spoke about her children, Bobby, nine, Cole, seven, and Nate, two, being on the tour bus during last year’s tour.
“There’s only a few months between Cole and Bear [Cheryl’s son with the late Liam Payne], and everyone just looked after Nate because he was the baby. For us as mums, we’re in a very different stage of our lives, so we were able to enjoy it for ourselves but also see it through their eyes.”
She also went into more details about why she brought the children on tour with her. “I don’t want to be away from the kids too much. And the tour is probably one of the most full-on things I’ve done over the last few years. But again, they were able to be involved. They were thrilled about that. They were able to come on the bus and be on tour with us, which was a really good experience for them.”
The tour was embarked on in honour of their late bandmate Sarah Harding. Sarah died in 2021, aged 39, after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Before she died, the singer told her bandmates that she wanted them to carry on and honour her and the band’s legacy.
Throughout the tour, Girls Aloud tried to keep Sarah’s memory alive. “That was the biggest challenge,” Kimberley said. “And that was the focus for all of us during those creative meetings, ‘How do we give Sarah her moment and keep her flowing throughout the show?’
“For us, that was so important; we wanted to feel like she was still with us. I do think we achieved that, we tried to bring it back to her whenever possible and give everybody that time to reminisce and celebrate her.” During the show, Sarah’s lead vocals played during I’ll Stand By You. “As hard as it was, I loved that part of the show.”
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