Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding dies at 39 of breast cancer | Music

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Pop singer and TV personality Sarah Harding, who ranked 21 in the UK’s top 10 singles as a member of Girls Aloud, has died at the age of 39 of breast cancer.

In an Instagram post, Harding’s mother Mary said: “I am deeply saddened to share today the news of the passing of my beautiful daughter Sarah.

“Many of you will know Sarah’s battle with cancer and that she struggled so hard from her diagnosis until her last day. She slipped in peace this morning.

“I would like to thank everyone for their generous support over the past year. It has meant the world to Sarah and given her so much strength and comfort to know that she is loved.

“I know she wouldn’t want people to remember her for her battle against this terrible disease – she was a shining shining star and I hope that’s how she can be remembered instead. – Mary x.”

In August 2020, Harding announced that she had the disease and was receiving chemotherapy. She said at the time: “My wonderful mum, family and close friends are helping me with this and I want to thank the wonderful NHS doctors and nurses who have been and still are heroes.”

Harding was born in 1981 in Berkshire and raised in Stockport. She left school early and began to focus on a music career, at first recording vocals for dance producers. In 2002, she did not pass an audition for the talent show at BBC Fame Academy, but she successfully entered Popstars: The Rivals on ITV that year.

Sarah Harding is centered with Nicola Roberts, Cheryl Tweedy, Kimberly Walsh and Nadine Coyle. Photo: Tim Rooney/Getty Images

This format created a boy band, One True Voice, and a girl group, Girls Aloud, who were then competed with each other at Christmas #1. Girls Aloud, with Harding alongside Nadine Coyle, Nicola Roberts, Cheryl Tweedy and Kimberly Walsh – “Five Girls” Northerners with attitude, very outspoken,” as Harding described them – were triumphant, with their debut singles Sound of the Underground becoming the first of four UK chart toppers and 21st top 10 hits in a decade-long career.

With Harding bringing adorable fun as well as directing the glamor of girl groups in the 1960s, Girls Aloud became one of the country’s most successful music acts of that decade, with four of their five studio albums also at number 10. The group has also gained critical acclaim for its quirky guitar-driven sound, and notable fans including Bono, Chris Martin and Arctic Monkeys; Even Ken Livingston and David Cameron were fans of themselves.

They won a 2009 Brit Award for Best Single, for the song Promise #1, with Harding telling the awards crowd, “It’s about time!” That song was one of Harding’s best performances of soaring pop, as she sang signature lyrics that were typical of the band: “Here I am, primrose walking / I wonder when I’ll see you again.”

Girls Out Loud later stopped in 2009 and Harding began an acting career which lasted after the group split in 2013. She appeared in two St Trinian films, the BBC TV movie Free Fall with Dominic Cooper, and Danny Dyer’s Run for Your Wife.

Girls performing out loud on their last tour in 2013. Photo: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

In 2015, she played the wronged sweetheart Jonny Preston in four episodes of Coronation Street, saying, “To make soap, your favorite soap, a cameo in it, in your town – it’s the best feeling.”

She also appeared in a play adapted from the movie Ghost, but achieved her biggest success after Girls Aloud by returning to reality TV. She won a Celebrity Big Brother in 2017, and has also appeared on the Celebrity Masterchef, Tumble gymnastics show, and winter sports series The Jump. She became one of many celebrities who were injured in the latter, pulling out of a knee injury after five weeks.

Harding was a big hit in the tabloids’ romance with actor Stephen Dorff, model Calum Best and her superstar celebrity co-star Chad Johnson, and she also made headlines for her six-month driving ban in 2013 after she was. She was caught using her mobile phone at the wheel.

She was briefly engaged to Tom Crane, DJ, but the couple separated in 2011 and soon after she entered a rehab facility with depression and alcoholism. She later said hello! magazine. “It was my way of escaping.”

Regarding her sad image, she later admitted, “When it came to going out on stage, I’d go ahead and get into my caricature pose for Sarah’s dairy, everyone thought I was. People would finally see that there was a softer side to me. [in Ghost] Never seen him before. This side is usually reserved behind closed doors for my friends and family. I don’t like showing weakness.”

In 2021, she published a memoir, Hear Me Out, written in the wake of her diagnosis. She said she was “inundated with beautiful messages from my fans” after announcing her illness. “I am grateful beyond words for that,” she added.

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