Hear Me Out

by Sarah Harding

  As was usual for the show, my housemates were a mixed bunch. They included Shaun Williamson from EastEnders, comedy actress Helen Lederer, Hollyoaks actor Paul Danan, Most Haunted’s Derek Acorah, singer and former finalist of The X Factor Amelia Lily, and Sandi Bogle from Gogglebox.

  It all started off quite well in the house, and we were all quite friendly, but there was soon a very definite splitting off into different cliques – as there always is; that’s when all the ‘he said this, she said that’ starts and animosity erupts. I had a particularly volatile time with glamour model Jemma Lucy, who never let an opportunity to fight with me go by. By the sixth day, I broke down in the diary room, telling Big Brother I couldn’t cope with being in the environment as it was. I never really relaxed in the house, always feeling like a bird on a wire. I found myself watching the cameras to see if they were on me, feeling like I couldn’t escape. Sometimes I even took off my microphone, just so I could feel like I was having a private moment. I couldn’t even go to the loo without people listening, and there weren’t any locks on the doors. FFS!

  I don’t know why I imagined that someone with my restless and changeable personality could cope with such an enclosed environment, especially given some of the hostility being thrown around.

  It was like that movie, The Truman Show, and once you were in it, you couldn’t get out – although I tried a few times. There were a couple of moments in the diary room where I lost the plot.

  ‘I need to speak to my agent! I want to get out of here now!’

  Every morning, at about 9.20am, I’d wake up, as if my body knew that the day was about to start and I needed to be on alert. Beyond the house were the walkways and corridors where the cameramen worked, and I could hear them walking up and down behind the big mirror in the bedroom. It made me feel on edge the whole time, like I was in a fishbowl. I clearly hadn’t thought this through.

  On the funnier side of things, I took in three massive suitcases full of clothes, but only had a tiny wardrobe to put them in. And so many pairs of sunglasses it was ridiculous. I’m the same everywhere I go, never knowing what to take with me. This was over the top, even for me. I guess I just wanted to make a good impression.

  My relationship with fellow housemate Chad Johnson was one of the big talking points of the show. I seriously had not gone into that place looking for love and romance. We got close because he was one of the few people I felt I could trust and confide in while I was in there and my only real ally. He wasn’t a backstabber. The worst part about it was, I’d recently started dating a guy, who I knew must be seeing it all play out on TV every night. We had only been dating for a couple of weeks, and I didn’t see it as serious at that point, but it wasn’t a good look. In fact, when the other contestants weren’t eating me alive, my guilt was. It was a mistake, and I messed up. After my brief relationship with Chad came to an end, post-Big Brother, we did get back together again for a while, but it was never the same. I don’t think he ever forgave me, no matter how sorry I was. I pulled out all the stops to make it up to him, but he never really got over it.

  I’d gone into the house wanting people to see me for me. I’d wanted to show people that I’m not just the crazy pop-star party girl who has problems with alcohol. I’m afraid I suffered at the hands of other people’s jealousy and pettiness and then succumbed to my own demons.

  The funniest and most surreal part about it was that I won. I won the damn thing! Just like in Popstars: The Rivals. Just when all the odds seemed to be against me, the public spoke, and I won. I just didn’t get it. Maybe people had seen something else in me after all; I don’t know.

  It’s funny, I was talking to Cheryl about my time in the Big Brother house just the other day, and she told me how much she enjoyed it. She thought it was absolutely hilarious! I must have done something right.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHERYL ON SARAH

  The news of Sarah’s illness hit me so hard. When Peter gathered Kimberley, Nicola and me together at my house to tell us –

  Nadine was away in Ireland – I went into shock. The worst part for me was the severity of the diagnosis. In the past, when I’ve known someone was ill, I’ve always felt able to say, ‘Stay positive, you can get through this.’ However, it was hard to find the positive in what I heard from Peter.

  Since that day, she’s been on my brain every waking hour – so much so that I feel like I want to be with her. Of course, that’s not possible. There just seems to be so much up and down with what she’s going through. Sometimes, she and I FaceTime, she sounds strong, and we can chat away happily for hours. Other times she’s just wiped out. I suppose that’s the nature of it; it seems so unpredictable.

  Initially, I felt helpless. I struggled to find the right words to say when I spoke to her, and I didn’t know what to do or how to be. I guess I’m one of the lucky people who’ve never really found myself in this position with a loved one before. In the end, I decided that I was going to call her, reminisce, and be as normal as possible. This was, after all, still Sarah – that same girl who’s been in my life for almost twenty years now.

  I think of myself as a spiritual person, and I guess Sarah does too, so there’s been an honesty between us when we talk about what might be. I’ve always believed that the end of our life on Planet Earth isn’t the end of everything and that we go to an incredible place once it’s over. That’s something I’ll always keep reminding her. We’ve also made a pact that if and when she’s left us, she’s going to come back and visit me. We haven’t decided exactly what form she might take, or what sign she might give to let me know it’s her, but I said I don’t mind as long as she doesn’t come when I’m on the loo.

  We both have this obsession with a TV show called Ancient Aliens. It’s a documentary programme that discusses and presents possible evidence of extraterrestrial encounters throughout history. There are about fifteen seasons of it to date. You can call it conspiracy theories, but the guys on the show travel around the world studying old artefacts, historic sites and ancient writing, relating it back to the idea that alien encounters are documented in historical texts. Whatever your opinion, it’s a fascinating theory and a great watch, and Sarah and I are both bang into it. We spend ages talking about stuff like that; it’s a fun distraction for her, I suppose. Like most people, I’ve watched a lot of TV while we’ve been in lockdown, so I’ll also tell Sarah any good TV finds I’ve made, and what she can binge-watch while she’s resting between treatments.

  Looking back, I think I had an instinct towards Sarah that was almost maternal, right from the off. Even though she’s older than me, we always had that dynamic. She’ll tell you herself how bad she was when it came to remembering choreography, and I remember being acutely aware of how stressed she’d be about it. Consequently, if she forgot her steps or her place while we were in the middle of a routine on stage, I’d literally leave my position to go and guide Sarah to hers. I still feel like that towards her now, only tenfold.

  When Girls Aloud first came to be, I’d never met anyone like Sarah; she was the complete blistering blonde package. Ditzy and fantastically ‘out there’, she seemed outgoing and extroverted. To be honest, the rest of us were usually trying to put her back in her box, because she was such a wild child. She was also fiercely independent, and her moral compass was always on point. For instance, you all know how us girls like a bit of a gossip. While we were all gossiping about this person or that, Sarah was always the one to say, ‘Oh, stop gossiping about people. Be nice!’ That’s probably the thing I love most about Sarah; she doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. For all her wildness and craziness, there is not a malicious or nasty bone in her.

  Sarah’s downfall has always been her insecurity and not being able to recognise or accept all her great qualities. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years telling her how gorgeous she is; trying to get her to see the beauty in herself rather than the bad things. Sarah often concentrates on what she thinks are her flaws, bu
t some of those flaws are the things I find beautiful in her. I guess that’s what makes her such a confusing character. How the rest of us girls saw Sarah was not the way she saw herself. It was like two completely different worlds.

  Sometimes, you might get more than you bargained for with Sarah. There were times when she’d come into rehearsals after a heavy night of partying and was just too tired to get through the day. Sometimes it was frustrating, but I’d try to see things from Sarah’s angle. I’d ask myself why she felt the need to let loose so much; that there must be something behind it. I don’t think I always had the answers, mind you. Sometimes, I noticed the tell-tale signs of when Sarah might be struggling. She might have broken up with a boyfriend but not told us about it yet, but I could tell it was coming because of the way she was behaving. There was a definite pattern.

  The comedowns from all of that could be lethal and quite funny. There was one occasion when she turned up at Music Bank rehearsal studios – hoodie up, dark glasses on, Ugg boots. I knew straight away she wasn’t feeling her best after a big night out. It got to the point that morning that she was so tired and frustrated with the rehearsal she threw a cup of tea across the room, missing Nicola by about a centimetre. There was tea up the wall and all over the floor. Looking back, it makes me smile. It’s something we all laugh about now, even Nicola.

  It was always my job to remove Sarah from those hyper situations. I’d sit down with her, talk to her and calm her down while she was going off on one. She was never mean or vindictive; she was just feeling the worse for wear and often more pissed off with herself than she was any of us. I remember having quite deep conversations with her at specific points. I tried to get her to tone down some of the things she was getting up to within that whole party scene. It was hard to be angry with her, though, because I always knew there was no malice behind what she was doing. I also knew that she was playing up to the image that she’d been handed; the one that she’d helped create. Through all of it, I knew a different Sarah. All of us girls did. The trouble was, it didn’t matter how hard a person opened their arms to her, sometimes she just didn’t know how to accept it.

  For me, some of Sarah’s best and funniest moments in Girls Aloud came on our final tour, Ten, after we’d all had a three-year break from one another. She was a real livewire on that tour, but not in a bad way. I guess she’d let go of the discipline of being in the band with four other girls, as we all had to a degree. That was when the mother-hen instinct in me really kicked in. I was forever reminding her where she was supposed to be on stage or letting her know when she’d missed her link to do or say something.

  ‘Just keep an eye on me, and I’ll give you a signal when it’s your cue,’ I’d say to her.

  Of course, the moment she performed – when she was actually out there singing – she was always completely unique. Her voice would soar across the arena, and she’d deliver an incredible performance. She always did us proud and blew everyone away.

  Now I just want to be there for her in any way I can. She might want to cry or rant or even have a laugh, but wherever it is, just be there. Mostly, I try to keep my own emotions in check, but on one FaceTime call with her the other day, I couldn’t hold it in any more. She relayed some terrible news she’d had that day, and I lost it and started crying. I tried to move the phone out of the way so she couldn’t see my face, but she knew what was happening. The mad thing is, it ended up with Sarah comforting me. ‘Oh God, are you OK, babe?’ she said through her tears. ‘I wish I was there just to give you a hug.’

  It was so, so heartbreaking. There was Sarah, going through what she was, and she was more worried about me.

  To hear her talk about what might have been in her life, and what should have been, destroys me. It’s broken me now, just thinking about it. A couple of weeks back, she sent me a song that she said summed up how she felt. It’s by an American singer/songwriter called Beth Hart and the song is called ‘Leave the Light On’. The lyrics talk about a woman who wants to live and love but has never really known how to. I listened to it at 8am in the morning and ended up sobbing. I don’t want Sarah to have regrets, and I don’t want her kicking herself for things she’s done in the past. This illness would have happened to her regardless of how she chose to live her life. It is not, as some might suggest, a result of the person she is or has been. It’s just one of those awful things that life deals a person sometimes. That’s it.

  When we all got together at Soho Farmhouse, there were no tears. Actually, that’s not entirely true; there were tears, but they were from laughter rather than sadness. It was a lovely trip away for us all, and Sarah was at her best. She’s always been funny and sharp-witted, but somehow, in all this, she’s even funnier. God knows how! Maybe it’s because she’s more relaxed, I don’t know.

  I’m hoping to travel up to Manchester to see her before Christmas, and I’m looking forward to it. At the moment, I’m playing it by ear because I know how up and down she is with the new chemo pills she’s on. Still, I’ve made her a personalised Christmas bauble to hang on her tree. Inside the bauble, there are shooting stars and a message that says, ‘You have magic in you, Sarah!’

  I want to hand-deliver my bauble so we can hang it on her tree together.

  After that, we can get down to what’s important – talking about aliens.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I’ve had a really shitty couple of days. The skin is cracking on my feet and all my joints hurt. I’ve been in agony, and it’s been a struggle just getting around the apartment. If I’m sitting in one place for too long, or even when I wake up in the morning after a night in bed, I literally feel like I’ve seized up. My tendons and knees are killing me. I sometimes feel like I’m a hundred years old, and, apart from the soreness, the chemo tablets have made me really sick. I had to start retaking anti-sickness pills yesterday because it was so bad. The weird thing about this disease is that I just never know how I’m going to feel from one day to the next. It’s like a bloody roll-ercoaster. Today, for instance, I feel OK. I woke up, felt good, so I had a coffee and got busy packing some stuff up to take to the apartment. My lawyer Tricia is coming tomorrow, and I always want to look my best when somebody comes, whatever the situation. The only thing is, I’ve got hardly anything to wear because almost all of my clothes are too small for me. As I mentioned, I’ve put on a lot of weight with the steroids, and let’s face it, it’s not like I’ve had much chance to go shopping.

  Even when I am feeling well enough to go out to the shops, most of them haven’t been open during the second lockdown.

  Right now, I’m lying on the bed, having done my back in carrying speakers, which I’d brought from Mum’s. We’ve been slogging away all day trying to pack and sort boxes, but I still don’t feel like I’ve made much of a dent in it. It just seems endless.

  The thing I’m trying hardest to deal with at the moment is the mastectomy, which I underwent a few weeks back. I wasn’t ready to talk about it then, and I’m still not sure I am, but here goes. It was something that I’d hoped wouldn’t have to happen, but looking back, I suppose it was inevitable. I remember the surgeons saying that they would make a drawing of what parts of my breast needed to be taken away, and it was virtually all of it. They also took a skin graft from my back, somehow managing to work around my tattoos.

  Coming round from that operation was one of the worst moments of my life. I’m so grateful that Mum was there waiting for me because when I woke up I just screamed the place down.

  Now there’s just a bunch of stitches where my breast used to be. As much as I know it had to happen and I want to be brave, I can’t look at myself in the mirror any more. There’s something wrong with the image, and I can’t face it. On top of everything else, I just don’t look like me any more. I don’t recognise myself. It’s very hard to wake up every morning knowing that a part of me is missing; that part of my woman-hood is gone. The loss of it breaks my heart. Some women can have reconstruction, but I know
I’d just end up back in intensive care because I’m too ill. I suppose it had crossed my mind at one point, the idea of reconstruction, but now I have to be realistic. I have to let go.

  Sometimes, it’s like every single part of your body is screaming at you that you’re not the person you think you are in your head; that you can’t possibly be that person again. That’s how I’m feeling right now. I want to get back to normal so badly. It’s all I want, just to feel like me. But I know that’s never going to happen again.

  I was only ever meant to do the first half of the Ghost – The Musical tour. The idea was that if it was mutually agreed and it went well, I would potentially do the second half. Unfortunately, it did not go well, but the stories that came out in the press about my time in Ghost were inaccurate to say the least.

  I’ll admit that there were good shows and bad shows during my run playing Molly Jensen, but to say I was thrown in at the deep end was an understatement. The truth is, coming from a pop background, I had no idea how hard the life of a touring musical theatre actor was. I certainly didn’t factor in the toll singing eight shows a week would have on my voice. The worst part, however, was that nobody prepared me for it. The whole process was a massive eye-opener for me – getting used to terms like upstage right, downstage left. Then there were lighting cues and spots to hit, and, of course, a script to memorise and deliver. It might have all been a bit easier had we not had just three weeks of rehearsal.