Kym Marsh crosses her legs and smiles. Then she smiles again. Kym isn't really supposed to do smiles; certainly not this warm, wide smile that reaches her eyes. She is after all, Kym-with-a-y-Marsh: bad tempered, foul mouthed and difficult; the fifth member of the now defunct manufactured-for-television band Hear'say, who flounced out on her pop chums without so much as a 'See ya mate'. That was 12 months ago. Hear'say soon started to fall apart at the seams as the public fell out of love with this band stitched together on ITV's popstars and forced to live in a shared house. They became the targets for bottles and abuse on stage and were spat at in the street. The other members are said to be pretty much falling apart at the moment. Kym hasn't so much as picked up the phone to them.
'I don't feel anything bad about them,' says Kym. 'But it was hard for them to deal with what happened in terms of me leaving, so I've left the ball in their court and said: "I'm here. I can't believe the hell you went through." It was devastating. I don't know why they were spat at or why people threw bottles at them. I wouldn't wish whats happened to them on anybody. The way they have been treated is horrible. They didn't do anything wrong - they won a competition.
'In a way, we were an experiment. They wanted to find out what would happen by slinging five dysfunctional people together and making a band. It was kind of Big Brother-ish and we were each given a persona by the people making the programme, because it made great television. I was the loud one who swore and always had something to say, Suzie was painted as the quiet one and Myleene was the intelligent one. Those persona's weren't necessarily the right ones.
'It was like a pressure cooker in the house, with the tv cameras on us 24 hours a day. None of us had experienced anything like that, and we all went through emotions - mine would sometimes come out as as anger, and sometimes as crying - yet the tv people only showed the anger. My Auntie was horrified by how much I swore on the show. If I could change one thing, it would be that impression of me.'
Kym is not foul-mouthed. Her language is splattered with girlish phrases (everything is 'so exciting' or 'too lucky') rather than four letter words - and she has sticky-out ears. The ears are as much of a suprise as the smile. When we meet they're hidden behindher ever-so-shiny black hair. But she has this habit of fiddling with her hair and pushing it off her face. Soon, those protruding ears appear.
Kym has wanted to be a popstar since she was 10 years old. She was so determined to be chosen for the popstars band that she hid the fact that she was a single mother with 2 young children. Her son David 7, and daughter Emily 5, were shipped off to her parents as she packed her things to move into a tv house with her fellow wannabes. Kym was eventually exposed by 'nasty' Nigel Lythgoe in front of the cameras and burst into tears, but she kept her place in the band.. The rest of the band were enormously supportive of this single mum who had survived on income support.
Kym went into the house in november 2000 and remained there for 3 months. In march 2001, Hear'say's single Pure and Simple made it to the top of the charts, followed by a number 1 album and 2 more hit singles. But in january last year, a month after the flop of their 2nd album, Kym left the band, reportedley after a screaming row about a proposed trip to Oman, and shortly before marrying former Eastenders actor Jack Ryder, whom she had met at the BBC bar in Elstree, London. He had proposed to her with a treasure hunt - the clues led to him and he waited for her on 1 knee.
She says they're wonderfully happy and laughs at descriptions of them as the poor man's Posh and Becks. 'I know we've done interviews in magazines but we don't go to celebrity parties and Jack isn't worrying about whether he's wearing nail varnish or a headband. I think its just because I'm dark and he's got a bit of a Beckham look. But 1 thing I'll say is that, like us, they keep childcare in the family, and care a lot about their children.
Kym is about to launch a career as a solo artist. Her new album took 6 months to make, and she is extremely nervous about how it will be received. Music critics have suggested the single is actually an apology of sorts to her former band.
'I don't think I have anything to apologise for. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I didn't leave because of a row. Yes we rowed, of course we did, but not constantly> I don't think any of us would have met under normal circumstances, and that showed in some ways, but it wasn't the big deal it was made out to be. Being with Hear'say was like playing Cinese whispers at school. If you said you cut your finger, the next day it would be that you lost your arm. A little disagreement would always be presented as a mad row.
'Oman only became an issue because I couldn't go for personal reasons, which I wasn't prepared to discuss outside my circle. Basically I had to stay with my children. I'd seperated from their father 2 years before popstars and had brought them up on my own. Then the day I come out of the house, he decided he wanted them to live with him.
'I couldn't take them out of the area until the matter was resolved - they had to stay with my mother in Wigan. I found it hard to understand. Before popstars their father had been happy seeing them twice a week. If I'd been such an unfit mother, why did he wait for 2 years before doing anything about it? Suddenly, he was trying to turn everything around, and make out I'd left them, which wasn't the case.
'It was always known that the situation was tempory and they would be back with me once the programme was over. The people in the band knew what was happening, but they wern't parents. Unless your a parent, you don't understand the sheer hell of someone saying: "I'm sorry, but you can't have your children back." And you're saying: "Hang on, I didn't go anywhere I did this to make things better for all of us - to give them a future - and you knew that."
'By christmas, I was finding things very difficult to cope with. I wasn't tough enough to deal with being part of this big thing. I became much more inward-looking, less chatty, I was no fun to be with and I would cry at the drop of a hat. I couldn't justify the amount of tiome I was spending away from the children.
'My children were going through a tough time. I felt that they wer suffering and they needed me. They'd ask me why they couldn't live with me. I am first and foremost a mother of 2 children and I'd had enough of being away from the people I loved most in the entire world.'
Kym now lives with her children and husband at her parents new home in Hertfordshire. She bought them the house last year to say thank you for their unswerving support during the years she struggled to make something of her life.
In july, Kym and Jack and the children will move to a house they are having built. She hopes her parents will also move to be closer to them.
Kym was 18 years old and 3 months into a relationship with Dave Cunliffe when she became pregnant with David. She says she fell in love with her son's father because he nade her laugh, although she now admits, 'I wonder if I really was in love with him because of how I feel about Jack. Its unbelievably strong. Bang - it hit me and I knew I was in love.'
Indeed, the relationship with Cunliffe was falling apart at by the time of her sons birth, but they tried to make things work for the sake of the children - Emily was born 2 years after David. However when Emily was just 1 they finally faced up to the fact that their relationship was unsalvageable. Kym moved into a rented flat and lived on income support.
'I was still singing and still trying. My parents were so supportive. They always said: "You don't need to worry about childcare. We'll look after the children when your at work." But it was tough living on £90 a week. Running a house and paying bills doesn't leave you very much treat money. I couldn't give my children what I wanted to give them. My son used to be very into Thomas the Tank Engine. Every day he'd say: "Mummy, have you got enough pennies today - can I have a train?" And nearly always I'd have to say no'
Kym was cooking the childrens tea when her mother phoned to tell her about the auditions for popstars. No-one asked whether she had children and she decided not to volunteer the information until she'd been picked for the band. 'If I'd told them at the begining they wouldn't have put me in the band,' she says. 'Why should you be discriminated against because your a single parent?'
However the opportunity meant a forced seperation from her children. 'It was terrible leaving them,' she says. 'I'd always been there with them with them from the day they were born, and suddenly I could only see them at weekends. David felt it particularly. He'd already had a lot of changes in his little life. I went through so many emotions. I felt guilty and thought I should give it all up. My mum and dad wouldn't let me. They said it was only for a short while and then things would be back to normal. My mum said: "Your doing this to give them a better start in life."'
She says that Jack is now like a father to her children and a role model for David. 'Now because I've got my own career I can organise things around the children and not the other way around. I can go to parents evenings and take the kids to the dentist.