Kym Marsh: The girl from Wigan gets Saturday Night Fever and a sexy new look
KYM MARSH is back. And as she prepares for her role in the West End musical
Saturday Night Fever, she hits out at claims she's neglected her children and cheated on
her husband....
When ex Hear'Say singer Kym Marsh was dropped by her record company earlier you'd
have been forgiven for thinking it was a case of another wannabe's 15 minutes of fame
being up. But not if Kym Marsh has anything to do with it. Back with a gym-honed body
and a trendy new haircut, she's about to appear on the west end stage as Annette in
Saturday Night Fever - and she's ready for the challenge.
'Its something I should have done in the first place,' she smiles. 'All I've ever wanted to do is
sing, I don't necerssarily want all the stuff that goes with it.'
And for the 28-year-old mum of two from Wigan, there's certainly been a lot of "stuff". As
the bolshiest member of popstars band Hear'Say, she's never been out of the papers
since she swore at 'Nasty' Nigel Lythgoe after he told her he needed to lose weight.
Kym, says she had no idea how much the TV talent show would change her life. 'Popstars
was the first show of its kind, so I never knew how mad it would get. Suddenly everyone
was talking about me, it was very odd.'
But Hear'Say were not destined to be bigger than the Beatles. Kym quit amid rumours of
rows, and struggled with her breif solo career until she was dropped by her record
company. 'I was gutted, I cried for hours. But then again, I've heard Gareth Gates has
been dropped too. There's not enough artist development in this industry. If your not
earning money for the company, they don't want to know.
The axing topped of an annus horribilus for Kym. She'd seperated from her toyboy
husband Jack Ryder after a year of marriage, amid reports she was having an affair with
22-year-old David Wilcox, from the boyband Triple 8. She denies it fervently.
'Jack and I did spend some time apart, but it was just teething trouble. I didn't have an
affair.'
Another thing Kym won't stand for is being called a bad mother. 'That really upset me.
One newspaper printed a viscous attack on me, saying I never saw my children. I think it
must have upset loads of working mums too. When you have kids, your life doesn't just
stop. If anything, you have more pressure to go out and earn money.'
Kym has lived with the 'bad mum' tag since she was in the Popstars house and left her
children, David and Emily, at home in Wigan with their father, David Cunliffe. 'David and I
split up a few years before, and we'd never had problems. But when I had to move to
London he got scared, so he put an injunction on me to stop me taking them from Wigan.
I didn't have them with me because I couldn't. But I never talked about it, because I didn't
want to drag the kids through it.' David, nine, and Emily, six, now live with Kym and Jack,
who plan to have a baby of their own together. 'I want one more before I'm 30 - and I'm 28
now.'
Much has been made of Jack's career difficulties. He quit Eastenders after 4 years of
playing Jamie, hoping to make it in Hollywood. Since then jobs have been thin on the
ground and there was much sniggering when he signed up for panto. Kym sighs. 'That did
upset him. Jack's only 22, and he sees panto as the begining of a ladder he has to climb
to get where he wants to be. I think its commendable.'
Kym says they lead a very unstarry existence in their Hertfordshire village. However, she
does stay in touch with some showbiz chums such as former bandmates Myleene Klass
and Suzanne Shaw, who is pregnant by 'love rat' Darren Day. What does Kym think of this
news? She says, diplomatically, 'He just hasn't found the right girl before, clearly. Maybe
the baby will be what he needs to settle down.'
But whatever happens to Darren and Suzanne, the future is rosy for Kym. 'It doesn't
matter how many times I'm kicked, I'm going to get back up, because I have to provide for
my kids - and I owe it to myself.'