golden. After an early taste of fame with
S Club Juniors (a spin-off of S Club 7), in
which she performed between the ages
of 12 and 16, she briefly presented kids’
TV show Smile on BBC Two on Sunday
mornings, then... work dried up.
‘My mum was like, “What are you going
to do now? You have to do something,
you’re nearly an adult.” So I worked in
a bar and got a job flyering for a local radio
station in Essex,’ she remembers. ‘It was
really hard because people would recognise
me, and I was outside Tesco giving out
leaflets. I’d get embarrassed because
you could see people saying, “Why is she
doing this?”’ Typical of Rochelle’s positive
outlook, she can see the silver lining.
‘I’m actually pleased that I did it because
now I appreciate everything, and it made
me more of a grafter,’ she says, firmly.
‘I’m prepared to work my bum off.’
Eventually, The Saturdays came about,
and the rest is history. It sounds like her
mum’s no-nonsense attitude helped boost
her work ethic. ‘She’s very down-to-earth,’
laughs Rochelle. ‘I remember in S Club
Juniors, I’d be performing at Wembley
Arena and then coming home at night and
my mum would be like, “You need to tidyyour room, it’s a mess.”’ Her father may
have been absent when she was growing
up, but Rochelle’s mother was (and still is)
a huge influence. I can’t help wondering,
how did the daughter of a practical single
mum working for the NHS end up joining
a pop group when she was 12 years old?
‘They announced an open audition on
CBBC,’ she remembers, laughing at the
ridiculousness of it. ‘I begged mum to take
me, and we queued all day to be seen. Then
they said they wanted eight of us for a new
band called S Club Juniors. I remember
saying to Mum, “If you don’t let me do
this, I’m never talking to you again.”
I know she was really unsure about it.
To her it was like, what the hell?’
Rochelle has achieved so much – pop
star, prime-time TV host, children’s book
author – it’s hard to believe she’s only just
turned 30. ‘You know when you have kids,
you have to pretend that you’re not scared
in certain situations when actually you’re
pooing your pants? There is a lot of that,’
she grins. ‘I brave-face it a lot. That’s always
been my coping mechanism. I kid myself
that it’s fine and then, all of a sudden, it is.
It’s good to do something that frightens
you, whether that’s running the marathon
or taking a job that you feel underqualifiedand has been embracing her
natural curls ever since. ‘And
now Alaia loves her curls!’
The conversation even led
to a surprise side hustle for
Rochelle, when she wrote her
own children’s book on the
subject: The Mega Magic Hair
Swap. ‘I wanted to buy her
a positive children’s book,
teaching you to love yourself
as you are, and I couldn’t find
anything,’ she explains. ‘So
I decided to write one, and I
still get messages every day
saying thank you for this book.
There are so many parents
in a similar situation.’
Meanwhile, in her day job,
Rochelle and Marvin are
shaping up to be the hottest
pairing on prime-time TV.
She describes The Hit List
as perfect family viewing.
‘We waited for the right show
to do together, and a music-
based quiz show couldn’tbe more us. We’re loving it.’
But The Hit List isn’t the first
time they’ve worked together;
they’ve also guest-hosted
This Morning, and have such
chemistry and charisma that
it’s surely only a matter of
time before they get their own
daily show, à la Richard and
Judy. When I suggest this,
she laughs uproariously:
‘Oh my God, imagine!’
Rochelle and Marvin got
together on the pop circuit
in 2010, when Rochelle was in
girl group The Saturdays and
Marvin was in boy band JLS.
They married in July 2012,
and the entwined R and M
tattooed on Rochelle’s wrist
is the monogram from their
wedding. It sounds fairy-tale- and more often than not looks
it on Rochelle’s social media
profiles – but her life hasn’t
always been completely
‘One day, when we don’t have
all this, we can look back
and say that we enjoyed it’
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