Nicola Roberts

Nicola Maria Roberts (born 5 October 1985) is an English singer and songwriter.

Roberts was born on 5 October 1985 in Stamford, Lincolnshire, when her mother was 17.

At the time of her birth, her father was working for the RAF and the resulting pay led to financial struggles which saw her father move to work for the Ford Motor Company whilst her mother became a photographer to help the family monetary problems.

Roberts grew up in Runcorn, Cheshire.

She attended St Chad's High School.

In school Roberts found herself shying away, in contrast to her home life where she was outgoing, even gaining the nickname 'Cilla' (after singer Cilla Black) from her family.

Academically, Roberts performed well, leaving with nine GCSEs, but she declared her dislike of school and began discussing a musical career which led her to work with several girl groups recording demo tracks in several cases.

Roberts acknowledged she had always wanted to be a singer and had been entering competitions and auditions with her father accompanying her and gaining support from other family members also.

In an interview with Closer magazine, Roberts spoke about how she began her musical career at a local disco, as part of a girl band called The 5 Musketeers.

Still a teenager, Roberts auditioned for the reality television series Popstars: The Rivals.

Participants checked into a hotel in Kensington, London, before performing to a panel of celebrity judges; Roberts found that, up to that point, she "didn't really have much life experience".

During the auditions she coincidentally sat next to Kimberley Walsh, who was to complete the competition to become one of five in the final line-up of the girl group; the two spent time rehearsing before their solo audition.

Roberts felt confident before the audition, but during the actual audition she was "terrified" and was unable to smile until celebrity judge Geri Halliwell complimented her performance stating "I think you're great, you're an individual, you really stand out".

Roberts found her clothing and personality were different from those of the other participants in Popstars: The Rivals; most were well-trained vocalists and were well-dressed, while her clothing was less fashionable, due to lack of funds, and she was not as vocally well-trained as the others.

Having progressed in the competition, Roberts was left as one of 15 remaining participants but found that the reality show was becoming increasingly based on personality instead of vocals.

She found her personality to be more concealed than others', but was "confident" with her performances.

One notable incident during the competition was when a show-producer expressed to her mother that Roberts would not win, for she was not "outrageous" or as outgoing as others stating that vocals were secondary.

This left her mother shocked by the politics of the show.

After the final ten participants were selected Roberts was eliminated from the competition, but in the following weeks after participant Nicola Ward quit, she was enlisted as a wild-card to return to the show – despite reservations from judge Louis Walsh, who did not back her return.

However, he was overruled by judges Geri Halliwell and Pete Waterman.

Roberts then made it through to the final where she sang the track "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters.

She was the second contestant to be selected for the group, after Cheryl Tweedy.

That night the group was formed, and a party involving promotional photographs saw their introduction to manager John McMahon, who would become more of a personal friend for the group.

Roberts described her time on the show Popstars: The Rivals and her successes within the show: "Every week before I went on stage I used to go to the toilet, to the same cubicle, and pray, just ask God to please let me have this. Even though I was confident in my singing ability, and I knew I had a stronger voice than most at the time same time I still had a little bit of insecurity because I'd been told Louis didn't want me. I was never in the bottom two, though, and the producers told me I always came in the top two or three in terms of votes each week, which was great."

After their formation on Popstars: The Rivals, the group Girls Aloud went on to record their debut single and music video.

In addition to that, a large stint of publicity left the group exhausted, since McMahon continually pressured them to promote the single "Sound of the Underground".

At this point, the competition with Popstars: The Rivals was still ongoing with the two groups; Girls Aloud and One True Voice competing to outsell each other with their debut single releases.

Girls Aloud ultimately won the competition with their single topping the UK Singles Chart and gaining a record deal from Polydor Records.

In the following days, however, news broke that McMahon had died in a car accident, shortly after texting Roberts, who was too busy to respond.

The death of McMahon had a large impact on Roberts, who found herself increasingly emotionally unstable; it came at a time when she moved in with bandmate Cheryl Tweedy, this being the first time she had lived without her family.

Thus, at this time Roberts was under great stress; the biggest problem, though, was the constant media criticism of her image, in which critics labelled her "unattractive".

Girls Aloud as a group enjoyed many successes, including two entries into the Guinness Book of World Records for "Most Successful Reality Television Group" and "Most Consecutive Top Ten Entries in the UK by a female group".

In 2002, Roberts was selected as a member of Girls Aloud, a pop girl group created through ITV's reality competition show Popstars: The Rivals.

The group went on to receive large success, achieving a string of 20 consecutive UK top ten singles (including four number ones), two UK number one albums, five consecutive platinum selling studio albums, and receiving nominations for five BRIT Awards, winning Best Single in 2009 for "The Promise".

In addition to this, the band gathered five BRIT Award nominations, winning Best British Single in 2009 for "The Promise".

The group earned four UK number one singles, twenty consecutive UK top-ten singles and critically they have been well-received with most albums, although Roberts found at times critical opinion was "less than desirable".

In 2011, Roberts released her debut solo studio album, Cinderella's Eyes, which peaked at number 17 on the UK Albums Chart.

Its lead single "Beat of My Drum", debuted at number 27 on the UK Singles Chart.

Two follow-up singles, "Lucky Day" and "Yo-Yo", both gained equally positive critical responses.

In February 2020, Roberts won the first series of ITV's The Masked Singer UK, masked as Queen Bee, and the following year, Roberts returned in the final of the second series as a guest judge.