The Girl in the Band: Bardot – a cautionary tale

By Belinda Chapple and Bianca Ross

This is the story Bardot’s Belinda Chapple has wanted to tell for twenty years – a cautionary tale of exploitation and heartbreak.

In 2000, millions of Australians tuned in to watch Popstars, one of the world’s first reality television competitions, in which five girls were selected from thousands to become members of a new band: Bardot. And Belinda Chapple signed a contract that would turn her life upside down.
 
Bardot shot straight to fame and Belinda spent the following three years relentlessly rehearsing, recording and touring. The band released two very successful albums, a slew of hit singles, and performed on world stages to thousands of adoring fans.
 
But Belinda discovered that the life of a popstar could be lonely, and it came with consequences she never saw coming. The impact on her body image was disastrous, and it was impossible to maintain romantic relationships, but at least she had her fellow band members to turn to for support … or so she thought.

The Girl in the Band is a behind-the-curtains look at the ruthlessness of the entertainment industry. Belinda Chapple’s story will resonate with anyone who’s given up everything for a dream, only to have it shatter around them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
• Release date: Aug 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781761420733

Belinda Chapple

Belinda Chapple has one of the most recognisable faces in Australia. A veteran of the entertainment business, Belinda trained at the Johnny Young Talent school in Sydney. A singer, dancer and model, she shot to stardom as a member of the award-winning and platinum-selling band Bardot. Formed from one of the world's first reality television competitions, Bardot became the first ever group to debut at number on Australian charts with both their first single and first album. They completed several national and international tours throughout the UK, India, New Zealand, and the Asia Pacific region. Today, Belinda is a graduate of the National Design Academy in London. As an interior designer, she has worked across the globe on both domestic and international hotel projects. Belinda is also the original concept creator and Executive Producer for the TV series ‘Paper Dolls’, and has recently gone back into the recording studio with her former bandmate Katie Underwood to form the pop duo Ka’Bel.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

When reality TV first appeared on screens at the turn of the millennium, no one could have foreseen just how successful this format would become, or how far reaching the sociological and psychological impacts of this phenomenon would be.

My name is Belinda Chapple and I was one of the first stars of this now beloved entertainment genre. You may not remember me, because I have since steered my life away from the spotlight.

I was a member of the band formed from Australia’s inaugural reality TV show, Popstars. Bardot was Australia’s answer to the Spice Girls. We had unprecedented success with a number one TV show as well as international double-platinum albums.

From extraordinary gigs across Australia and Asia before the band, trying to break into the industry, to the Popstars auditions, Bardot’s unrelenting schedule, and the ultimate betrayal, this is the story of a young woman who gave herself entirely to her passion, and in return came to know the injustice of the Australian music industry.

It was almost soul-destroying. Somehow, I made it through, but not unscathed.

Let’s start at the beginning…

1

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

On a normal Saturday morning after a not-so-glamorous Castle Hill Tavern gig, I woke up late, my hair smelling of VB. (I didn’t even drink beer, how does the smell always get there?) Walking sleepily to the kitchen, I opened the fridge and gazed at the empty shelf. I should’ve got soy milk on my way home.

The mid-morning sun spotlighted a cheeky cockroach on the yellow lino of the house I called home – a ready-to-demo beach shack in Sydney’s beautiful Bronte. I shared the five-bedroom ‘Grand Dame’ with my sister and two girlfriends. The hallway’s worn 70s paisley carpets had a musty smell that permeated all the way up to the high ceilings. My housemate’s sightings of shadows and flickering lights had her convinced our place was haunted.

I pulled on my 501’s and favourite t-shirt and headed to the corner shop. It was a beautiful spring day.

‘Just the soy milk, thanks.’

The lady behind the counter smiled.

Rummaging in my worn pockets for coins, a magazine on the counter caught my tired eyes. ‘Australia’s Answer to The Spice Girls!’ read the headline emblazoned across the hottest band of the moment.

Oh my god.

My little heart raced and instinct took over. Tripping over the lolly stand in front of the counter, I grabbed the glossy and furiously flicked to the feature article.

Australia was forming a GIRL BAND! The audition form was on the next page. The lollies shimmied into a swirl of colour as nervous excitement surged through me.

All my life, I’d dreamed of being a recording artist, and I had been waiting for an opportunity like this. So far, my life as a performer had been pretty hard. I had heard one ‘Yes!’ for every four ‘No’s. This had happened over a hundred times at this point, so the industry had toughened me up a little.

I knew this audition would be nerve-wracking, but there was no question: this had to be my destiny.

I handed the magazine to the lady.

‘This one too, love?’

‘Yes, please!’ I replied, watching as my Life Ticket was stuffed in the bag next to the soy milk.

My walk home accelerated to an excited jog. I wanted to read the article again there, but I couldn’t wait. I stopped in the middle of the pavement and fumbled with the plastic bag, extricating the magazine from the condensation. I read the advertisement again and again, until I’d memorised every word.

Power-walking up my hilly street, I thought about the not-so-exhilarating jobs I’d had that are part of an entertainer’s remit. The TV extra job: seven hours of waiting for twenty minutes of action. The catwalk modelling for young designers. The Eastern Creek Raceway beer promo, handing drinks to ogling men. It was honest work that paid the bills, but it was finally going to be worth something more.

I’m auditioning for this band, I thought, rereading the ad. And I will get the part.

I thought I might just have a chance of landing this gig, and that feeling did not come often. It felt like all the work I’d put in was for this. I had been obsessed with pop music since I was a little girl, singing and dancing and rehearsing for all those years for this opportunity. I was now twenty-four, and the timing felt right.

As confident as I felt in that moment, I wouldn’t have dared guess that that Bronte milk bar transaction would actually make my dream of becoming a recording artist a reality.

2

AUDITION DREAD

I stared hard at my reflection in the warped and chipped wardrobe mirror. The girl staring back at me looked determined. Tomorrow was the big day: Audition Day.

Lately, gigs had been pouring in for my covers band and that meant my voice was getting a lot of practice and I was becoming more confident on stage. I loved performing, even in little venues with crap sound, but I could only dream of a day when my voice wouldn’t have to compete with an over-amplified bass line and ear-splitting drums. The thought that I just might be exactly what the competition’s judges were looking for made me more nervous.

I remembered the little girl who dreamed of being a performer, choreographing weekend matinees for Mum and Dad.

‘Mum… MUM! DAD! LOOK! I’ve got a new show!’ Dragged inside from their beloved garden to the living room cleared of furniture, they’d patiently watch as I danced my little heart out to David Bowie’s ‘China Girl’, then drape myself in Mum’s skirt with some cash props for ABBA’s ‘Money, Money, Money’.

That little girl had only known the joy and excitement of performing, not the anxiety and constant battle with my own body.

Leading up to the audition, I’d been swinging between excitement and nerves. The usual butterflies in my stomach felt like they were on steroids. I was never good at auditions: my nerves would creep in and ruin everything. I’d battle to drive them away, but it felt like the more times I let my nerves get the better of me, the more nervous I became.

One of my techniques was to close my eyes and tell myself to ‘inhale confidence, exhale stress’. But those butterflies thumped hard. I resorted to more desperate measures: ‘Please, God, if you are out there, give me this job, because I want to make some hot music videos!’

For as long as I could remember, I’d been obsessed with music videos. TV time in my family was an hour a day, so I skipped Saturday morning cartoons to save time for grown-up MTV. On school nights, I’d turn on the dining room lights to make dance studio mirrors in the floor-to-ceiling windows. Dressed in my Flashdance-inspired black leg warmers and leotard, I would dance for hours, dripping with sweat, only stopping to rewind my ‘Maniac’ tape back to the start. ‘Not this song again,’ Mum would say as she walked down the hallway. Eventually I’d tire and pirouette off to bed, more fired up from singing and dancing than in the sleepy state I should have been in.

I found myself desperately wishing for slumber now because I knew I needed the sleep of my life to give me the best chance to get through tomorrow’s audition. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down, but the adrenaline kept me up for hours. Was this going to be the beginning of my new career?

3

IN DAYS OF YORE

As a performer, there are gigs you can only dream of… and then there are the jobs you want to forget! And the gigs you think are yours – until they aren’t.

I was ten years old when this roller-coaster started. Excitement had hit the grade five classroom of Davidson Park Primary School. A call had gone out for auditions for the Australian Girls Choir, and I decided to go for it. The performance piece was an a cappella rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’, and in the lead-up to the audition I’d sung that song all week. Standing there in my school uniform, my little legs trembled as I sang to two ladies wearing unusual shoes.

After two weeks of waiting, which felt like an eternity, a letter finally arrived in the post. The fancy script underneath the formal letterhead announced I had been chosen for the choir. I was ecstatic! So Mum began taking me to the weekly rehearsals a 30-minute drive away from where we lived.

I did love the singing and harmonising, and performing at the Sydney Opera House, but I began to feel I didn’t quite fit in. The daggy choir tunic made me giggle, and I got bored of standing and singing slower tunes. In my heart, all I wanted to do was dance around in outrageous outfits and sing pop music!

So at the age of thirteen, realising that being a choir member wasn’t quite my thing, Mum thought it was time we looked into a performing arts school where I could learn singing and dancing. I was starting to wear out the carpet in my parents’ living room from all the performances.

After some investigation, we found the Johnny Young Talent School. It had a good reputation and I had watched the TV show Young Talent Time in the early 80s. At the JYTS, I could learn the performing arts for five hours every Saturday – jazz ballet, tap dancing, singing and acting. I was in heaven!

The dance school had a performing group that would do shopping centre shows around Sydney. And although I felt a little behind the eight ball, having only begun dance classes at age thirteen, I dreamed of joining that show group and worked hard to get there. After one year of training, I auditioned for the group, singing ‘On Broadway’ in a black leotard, black bolero jacket, fishnets, chorus shoes and big hair to boot. And I got in!

It was a very special time in my life. At fourteen years old, I was spending my weekends and some weeknights doing what I adored. I made some wonderful friendships at the school and in the show group. We were still very much cocooned from the big bad world of the entertainment industry, but a few of us began to audition for some outside work and it was always a reality check.

There was a talent agent in the same building as the JYTS, and my parents had signed me up there for some extra work. I was desperate to perform as much as possible. When I was thirteen, I landed my first high-paying feature role, in a Schweppes Cola TV commercial. I featured with two older, more experienced girls, and, being the youngest on set I soon learned the pressures of taking on professional roles. I had been cast as an 80s aerobics-class exerciser and my role was to dance and sweat while I longed for a can of Schweppes Cola. And this particular can of cola was being chugged down by a hunky male model standing at the vending machine. Thankfully, I was spared the actual workout and only had to dance during each take. Instead, to achieve the perfect shimmery, perspiring look, the make-up artist and production crew would come around and spray us with cooking oil and water every ten minutes.

I asked one of the camera crew when the commercial would go to air.

‘No idea,’ he said apologetically.

However, my agent followed up with the production company and found out the ad would launch during prime time on a Sunday night, when many Australians were settling in for an evening of entertainment. With the video recorder at the ready, my whole family waited for the timeslot. Dad held the remote, and when he anticipated the first commercial break he pressed record. And there I was, glistening like a toffee apple – the oil had worked!

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Unfortunately, not everybody was as supportive as my family. I went to an all-girls school, and most of the girls in my class at school had been kind, but this week was different. During Tuesday morning’s science class, sitting in my regular seat, I noticed that someone had written on the desk, in permanent marker, ‘BC is on TV and up herself’. My face turned bright red and I put my maths book over the graffiti to try and cover it. I had to sit through the whole class thinking about it, knowing it was just there on the desk. I don’t think I heard a word the teacher said. I was devastated.

This was my first experience of being bullied for doing something I loved. People can be nasty, and I was becoming aware that I would need to develop some seriously thick skin if I wanted to continue performing. I learned resilience by focusing on the joy that performing gave me – it grounded