04 May 2023 , 21:01
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Myleene Klass has revealed Sir Elton John sent her flowers after branding the members of Hear’Say “ugly” back in 2001.
Singer and TV host Myleene told how the rock legend, 76, regretted his actions and, typically, said it with flowers.
Myleene revealed on ITV ’s I’m A Celebrity...South Africa: “We even got sent some flowers from Elton John, who said we were the ugliest band in pop. Because he realised ‘yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have said that’.
“He sent ‘sorry flowers’ to us. It was bad. But I look back at that time and I think it was a different time in history.”
Hear’Say were formed on the ITV reality show Popstars in 2001. Sir Elton said of them: “They are the ugliest band I have ever seen. I feel sorry for them.”
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Myleene also told her campmates that she made it to the top the hard way, with lots of knock-backs over the years.
The 45-year-old was told “you’ve got to lose weight” when she joined the cast of Miss Saigon, despite having been chosen based on how she already looked.
Elton apologised after his catty comment (Getty Images)Referring to her then joining Hear’Say, she added: “And then I got into the band and the same thing happened again.
“I had other band’s managers saying, ‘you guys are the fattest band in pop’. So again, rather than the fact that we had talent, that I could play any piano sonata, read any music, play most of the instruments you put in front of me. It came back down to that simple fact of being the ‘fattest band in pop’.”
Myleene also explained how she was encouraged to change her name amid fears it might hold her back.
She said: “I was asked to change my name, I was told that people wouldn’t be able to pronounce it because it was quite an ethnic name. You’d be cancelled if you said something like that now.
“I was told to use my middle name. I am not using my middle name! My middle name is Angela.”
Myleene said although these things sound shocking now, they only happened a few years ago.
She concluded: “We were judged by our peers, we were judged by managers so then we started judging ourselves.
“There’s no wonder that the whole thing ate itself because we weren’t even thinking by the end of it as singers, we were thinking of it as visual commodities.
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“I wasn’t Helena Christensen, I’d gone in as Myleene Klass.”
* I’m A Celebrity...South Africa is on ITV at 9pm tonight.