During a live web-chat with fans yesterday, the members of pop group Atomic Kitten felt it necessary for some reason to stress that they were not untouchable superstars, and were in fact ‘still real’.
The statement was prompted by an apparently innocuous question from fan Kelly Underwood, 9, who asked, “Who were your idols when you were young, and why?”. Answering first, unremarkable-looking band member Natasha Hamilton replied “My idol was always Madonna. I remember seeing her on Top of the Pops when I was, like, 10 and I thought she was so cool. It was like she was from a different planet or something. And I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know how, but one day I want it to be me up there’”.
Interjecting, gawky and slightly pasty-looking Liz McClarnon added “I know - people like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper seemed unreal to us. The thing you have to remember about Atomic Kitten is that we are real people. We’re just three ordinary girls having a laugh. We may seem like famous, untouchable stars, but we are just normal.” Added the distinctly touchable, un-mysterious Jenny Frost, “Yeah, I mean I was working in a chippie before I was in Atomic Kitten. We don’t forget where we are from. We are real.”
Dressed in a Top Shop vest and Diesel Jeans, the mediumly talented McClarnon went on, “When people see us on TV going to glamorous premieres for films like Billy Elliot, About A Boy, and Janice Beard 45wpm, they get the wrong idea – like we are these sexy glamour-pusses from a different world. But the truth is, we feel like impostors sometimes! Like, what are us three lasses from Liverpool doing here?!”
Sending what was intended to be an inspirational message to their fickle, tartrazine-addled, pre-pubescent fans - many of whom had gone off the band during the course of the web-chat in favour of another group of average-looking, barely talented former waitresses and till girls called Girls Aloud – the slightly common Frost assured them “If you believe it enough, one day it could be you up here!”