Bardot's Belinda Chapple Shares How Little The Band Were Paid

Belinda Chapple, a member of the former iconic Australian girl group, Bardot, has released a no-holds-barred memoir, The Girl In The Band: A Cautionary Tale.

The book, officially released yesterday (30 August), has seen Chapple make the rounds with local press and discussing everything you want to know about Bardot’s shock disbandment.

“The Girl In The Band is a behind-the-curtains look at the ruthlessness of the entertainment industry,” the book’s synopsis reads. “Belinda Chapple’s story will resonate with anyone who’s given up everything for a dream, only to have it shatter around them.”

Chapple’s book, 20 years in the making, explores why Bardot broke up a year after after Katie Underwood spent a year in the band, Chapple’s friendship with bandmate Sophie Monk that soured, what happened with Chantelle Barry, the meeting where the band found out Bardot was over, as well as the devastating financial exploitation the group endured.

“It hit home to us when we were sitting there signing albums for three hours straight, in every state, with a sea of people,” Chapple told news.com.au in a new interview. “And we’d look at each other and just go wow, we’re making a lot of money … And we’re not seeing a cent of it. It was tough.”

Chapple revealed that despite fans spending $30 buying Bardot albums on CD and their debut album and massively successful single, Poison, reaching double Platinum status in Australia, the band members were only getting $35 a day. That’s under the poverty line.

Bardot was born from one of the earliest singing reality competitions, Popstars. Chapple watched on as the band’s profits and their Popstars TV appearances and the rest – concerts, merchandise, album and single sales – raked in upwards of $27 million.

Chapple continued in the interview, “Fans would say to us, ‘Oh, you guys must be rolling in it now, it must be amazing!’ We didn’t say anything. We didn’t go, ‘No, we’ve got no money.’

“We’d just sort of laugh uncomfortably and hope that they didn’t keep talking about it. It’s surprising that we toed the line so much … but we were young.”

You can order The Girl In The Band: A Cautionary Tale here.