teps singer Claire Richards has shared the strain she confronted to drop extra pounds in a bid to safe a spot within the beloved pop band.

After auditioning for the group in 1997, the 46-year-old has claimed that she was instructed to shed the kilos and admitted the feedback brought on her to spiral about her body image.

She instructed The Sun: “It wasn’t right then and it absolutely isn’t right now. But when you are young and you’re being offered that kind of opportunity – and the only stipulation is that you lose half a stone – I think any young girl would.”

Desperate to land a coveted spot within the band, she agreed to drop extra pounds to the purpose the place she grew to become “dangerously thin”.

Read More

Richards continued: “I wasn’t fat or big – I was a size ten or 12 – but I got skinny for the band. It was a polished pop group – everyone had their own idea of what people should look like. It was as close to perfect as anyone could get.

“The older I get and the more I think about it, of course it affected me because it just sent me on a spiral for years.”

Last month, she revealed how her physique picture spiralled after record bosses made cruel comments about her weight when she began out within the trade within the Nineties.

The One for Sorrow hitmaker recalled how she developed an eating disorder when she was placed on a 900-calorie-a-day weight loss program comprising of fish fingers and peas.

The popstar defined how her consuming was restricted whereas in a band known as The Scan-Dolls earlier than she discovered fame with Steps. At the time, ‘Heroin Chic’, which fetishised extremely skinny silhouettes, had grow to be in vogue.

And with supermodel figures deemed the perfect normal, the singer claimed her report label put her on the strict weight loss program, which was decidedly lower than the two,000 energy a day beneficial by the NHS for girls.

Speaking to Vicky Pattison on her The Secret To podcast, Richards revealed: “It happened when I was in [The Scan-Dolls]. They did it to all of us because we were all quite curvy girls. I was probably a 10 or a 12 and wasn’t big at all…

“But in the music kind of world and at that time that whole ‘Kate Moss heroin chic’ was a thing and they wanted everyone to be really, really skinny...

“So, we were all put on a diet. That diet was interesting because we were encouraged to eat fish fingers, peas and baked beans and have like a 900-calorie diet.”

The dialogue round her weight sadly continued when she joined Steps.

Richards shared: “The audition for Steps was [in] ’97 and by that time I had cut my hair really short, stupidly, and I was wearing this stripy catsuit which I wore in the video for Last Thing on my Mind.

“And I always use to tie a hoodie around my waist because I was really conscious of my bum because I thought I had a massive bum...

“They sat me down, did my audition and they said, ‘Oh, we really like you. We want you to be in the band, but you’re going to have to lose weight’ […] it set me on a pathway of not really eating for four-and-a-half years.’”

For assist and assist on consuming issues contact Beat Eating Disorders on 0808 801 0677.