That'll Be The Day!

It’s not often that I find myself thanking the grand overlords of destiny that I’m not a member of The Saturdays, but scanning the web for info on Mollie King, Rochelle Wiseman, Vanessa White, Frankie Sandford and Una Healy, otherwise known as the most drooled-over women in Britain, I’m suddenly delighted to have no part in their multicolored merry-go-round.

Aside from the fact that their every move is documented with unsettling regularity by the British and Irish tabloids, most of the headlines flooding my browser simply sound too preposterous to be true. If we’re to believe the gossip columns, one Saturday is busy planning romantic liaisons with Prince Harry, another spent the best part of last year in rehab and at least two of them are currently fuming at evidence from their fiancés’ raunchy stag nights.
Granted, I have no way of proving that, for example, blonde bombshell Mollie isn’t shacking up with His Royal Gingerness, but to me at least, the media’s portrayal of these particularly handsome pop stars is bordering on the hysterical, trumping any of the cock and bull stories I’ve heard about Girls Aloud, Sugababes or even the record-breaking One Direction.
It seems like, to be a Saturday, you must accept that a) you will never be permitted to increase in dress size; b) your sick days will hereafter recorded as heartbreak-fuelled drug binges; c) agreeing to don those carefully co-ordinated mini dress and heels means banishing your boyfriend to a perpetual Miami booze cruise.
I should point out that I discovered many of these rather flimsy tabloid tattles while trying to make sense of the topics that have been banned from my interview with Irish Sat Una Healy, none of which are repeats from the list I received when I spoke to her just four months ago.
I knew that this hair-flicking, hip-popping fivesome were big business – they do, after all, have an autobiography on the shelves, a nail polish range in the shops and a third TV documentary with Stateside channel E! in the works – but I had no idea just how dedicated the public were to following their every move. It’s little wonder that their third record was titled Headlines!, complete with defiant exclamation point.
Of course, if anyone can handle the cynical side of the press, it’s feisty Una, who, having just become a mum for the first time with rugby-playing partner Ben Foden, would certainly be forgiven for appearing a little flustered. On the contrary, the 30-year-old gave birth to honorary Saturday Aoife Belle Foden just seven weeks ago, and she’s already back on the job, promoting the band’s jam-packed summer schedule.
“Obviously, my whole life has changed now,” she tells me. “This little person is going to be dependent on me for the rest of my life. I have a daughter now, so it certainly does change overnight but it’s all for the best, you know? I wouldn’t swap her for the world. I’m taking to it very well and she’s a very good little baby so we’re thrilled with her.
‘She loves music!” Healy beams. “I think it’s probably because she was exposed to a lot of music while I was pregnant, she came on tour with me and everything. I remember I went in to record a song a week before I had her, and a guy in the studio played it back and she was literally kicking the whole time while he was playing it! People were getting really excited about it, but it was probably just because it was a bit loud!”
Sadly, there’s no way of telling whether baby Aoife was merely responding to the hike in sound levels, or having a tiny little rave in there.
“Yeah, you don’t know, you never know! But babies tend to like music. If there was no music, there’d be no life I don’t think, it’s so important.”
Healy’s already been reunited with her fellow Saturdays, but there’s still a couple of weeks until their first post-baby live show, conveniently located in Una’s hometown of Thurles.
“I never thought I’d see the day that I’d be going back to Thurles to do a gig with The Saturdays,” she laughs. “When I heard about it I thought, ‘This is amazing!’ We go all over the place but I never thought we’d end up in Thurles.
‘I’ll be quite nervous I think, because, you know, when you perform to your home crowd it’s probably more nerve-wracking than anything. At the same time, I’m so excited for it and the whole town is as well. My parents still live in Thurles and they said there’s a great buzz about it back home.”
I’ll say. Even local TDs have been getting in on the act, officially welcoming Ms. Healy back to the Premier county.
“Michael Lowry!” she exclaims. “I know! And they’re setting up a big stage for it, right across the road from Semple Stadium.”
Greyhound tracks, GAA landmarks, TDs; something tells me that the other four Saturdays don’t quite know what they’re getting themselves in for.
“No idea!” Healy cackles. “But it’ll be interesting for them to see where I grew up. It’s a great opportunity for them to see that because, you know, I’m the Irish girl in the band and they’re all London-based. For me it’s a whole new life, so it’ll be interesting for them to see what my old life was like.”
In the meantime, Saturdays fans will have to make do with the promise of a new record (a couple of tracks are already in the bag) and the new single, ‘30 Days’.
“It’s about being apart from someone,” Healy explains, “counting down the days until you see them again and that’s very common for us, being away on tour. With Rochelle (engaged to JLS hunk Marvin Humes) especially, and Frankie too, with her boyfriend (footballer Wayne Bridge) playing sport and that, sport and music tend to take you away quite a lot. Either our boyfriends are away or we’re away!”
Healy was determined to keep her baby bump out of the accompanying music video, which was filmed just one week before baby Aoife arrived, but a sneaky shot of her patting her tummy made it into the final cut.
“I didn’t see the point in me being pregnant in the video,” she hums, “but at the same time, it’s nice. It was part of the history of the band that I was pregnant during that time, so it’s just a little nod to that, really, I didn’t want it to be in peoples’ faces that I had a big bump. I thought, ‘This is my thing’, I didn’t want to look pregnant in the video, it has no relevance to the song or anything. There’s that little moment where I rub my belly and that’s enough. She’ll know that she was there.”
It doesn’t surprise Healy that she’s still making headlines as a mum, but for all the column inches that Britain’s biggest pop group occupy, is she worried that some of the press glare will fall onto the newly-inducted sixth Saturday?
“I think everyone,” she says, before changing her mind, “all the fans were really supportive of my pregnancy, so there isn’t anything to criticise, really. It’s such a positive thing to have a little baby. It’s creating new life. She’s going to be loved so much and I’ve been with Ben for a long time now, so it’s not like it’s coming out of nowhere or anything. I’ll always have my baby now. That’s life!”