Fernandez-Versini was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and grew up in
council estates in the neighbouring districts of Walker and Heaton.
She is the fourth of five children of Joan Callaghan, and the
first of her two children with Garry Tweedy following the collapse of her
marriage to the father of her three other children.
As a young child circa 1990, she appeared in a television advert
for British Gas with her younger brother Garry.
Interested in dancing from an early age, she began sequence
dancing at the age of four, before joining The Royal Ballet's summer school at
the age of nine. She occasionally appeared doing dance recitals on different
television shows in the UK, such as Gimme 5, in 1993.
She won recognition in several modelling competitions, including
the titles of Boots Group's bonniest baby, Mother care’s Happy Faces Portrait
competition, Best Looking Girl of Newcastle among others.
She made appearances in British Gas adverts for a second time, an
SCS furniture store advert, and an Eldon Square Christmas advert with younger
brother Garry.
She attended Walker Comprehensive School in Newcastle between
September 1994 and July 1999, and left at 16 with few qualifications
The Rivals in 2002 with the song "Have You Ever Several
thousand applicants attended auditions across the UK in hope of being selected.
Ten girls and ten boys were chosen as finalists by judges Pete
Waterman, Louis Walsh and Geri Halliwell. These finalists then took to the
stage, participating in weekly Saturday night live performances which
alternated weekly between the girls and boys.
Each week, the contestant polling the fewest phone votes was
eliminated, until the final line-ups of the groups emerged.
Fernandez-Versini
joined Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts, and Kimberley Walsh to form
the new girl group Girls Aloud, as determined by a public vote administered
through the show on 30 November 2002.
The group's debut single "Sound of the Underground"
peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the 2002 Christmas
number one.
Girls Aloud hold the record for the fastest time between
formation of a band and reaching number one single.
The group released their debut album Sound of the Underground in
May 2003, which entered the charts at number two and was certified platinum by
the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) later the same year.
Their singles "I'll Stand by You", "Walk This
Way", and "The Promise" have charted at number one.
Two of their albums have reached the top of the UK Albums Chart:
their greatest hits album The Sound of Girls Aloud and 2008's Out of Control,
both of which entered the chart at number one, with over one million copies of
the former being sold.
They also achieved seven certified albums and have been nominated
for five Brit Awards, winning the 2009 Best Single for "The Promise.
The group's musical style is pop, but throughout their career they
had experimented with electropop and dance-pop.
Girls Aloud's collaborations
with Brian Higgins and his songwriting and production team Xenomania earned the
group critical acclaim, due to an innovative approach to mainstream pop music.
The group became one of the few UK reality television acts to
achieve continued success, amassing a fortune of £30 million by May 2010.
Guinness World Records lists them as "Most Successful Reality
TV Group" in the 2007 edition. They also hold the record for "Most
Consecutive Top Ten Entries in the UK by a Female Group in the 2008 edition,
and are credited again for
Most Successful Reality TV Group" in the 2011 edition. The
group was also named the United Kingdom's biggest selling girl group of the
21st century, with over 4.3 million singles sales and 4 million albums sold in
the UK alone.
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