Bucks Fizz’s Cheryl Baker: I was offered £40,000 to go on Big Brother

Born Rita Crudgington in 1954, 72-year-old Cheryl Baker, became a household name in 1981 when she won the Eurovision Song Contest with the Bucks Fizz hit “Making Your Mind Up”. Three number ones and 20 singles followed before she launched a television career, including a 10-year stint hosting Record Breakers. Buck Fizz have now rebranded as The Fizz and still perform live regularly. Cheryl is also the mother of twin daughters, 32-year-old Kyla and Natalie. Her husband, Steve Stroud, was in The Hollies and played bass for Cliff Richard’s band. The couple live in Kent. Here she looks back on the moments that changed her perspective on work, love, family, money and health. I was first told I wouldn’t be successful as “Rita Crudgington” in 1975, when I joined my first band Coco. I answered an advert in the Melody Maker music newspaper for a girl singer and when I told the manager, Slim Miller, my name he said, “Well that’ll have to go”. I was Bonnie Silver first, which was my mum’s Maiden name, but they decided it was too stagey. It does sound like a porn star name. So after two weeks, I became Cheryl Baker. But I’ve always been Rita. I’m Rita Stroud now I’m married and everyone I know calls me Rita. My life could have been very different without Chrissy Wickham. She was the choreographer who came up with the idea for us all to rip our skirts off when we sang “Making Your Mind Up” in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981. It was a stroke of genius and, without question, won us the competition. My life changed beyond all recognition when we won Eurovision. Shorts A troll said to me recently, “It’s time you were dead“. The Fizz had a new single out recently and most of the comments we get are fantastic saying how wonderful the song is and that it sounds like the old Bucks Fizz, but then you’ll get one wanker saying something like that. I just block them. I’ve had quite a few over the years and the early ones used to upset me, but I’ve got used to it. They’ll never hurt me. The darts player, Jocky Wilson, was rude and vile. I was interviewing him and he reduced me to tears, then the craft cockney Eric Bristow came over and said to me, “I’m so sorry, he’s a wanker, just keep out of his way”. He was my knight in shining armour. Gyles Brandreth burped in my mouth. We were trying to break the Guinness World Record for the longest televised kiss. And no, it wasn’t tongues. My manager said it would be good for my profile, and we ended up kissing, live on breakfast TV, for three minutes, 33 seconds. He’d drunk a cup of coffee just before we had the snog, and then he burped during the kiss. It was awful but Giles is lovely, and he’s such a gentleman. Also, they reduced the image of us kissing so it only appeared in the corner of the screen. To demonstrate that it wasn’t just a screenshot, Giles started running his hands through my hair. I was way too big for my boots. People are bigging you up so much; you’re number one and everyone’s saying how great you are, and there were moments when I was a diva. I had a row with the bloke on the door on Top of the Pops once and to my shame I actually said to him, “Don’t you know who we are? Heads will roll”. Mike Nolan apologised to him and said, “I think she’s on her period or something”. I can’t believe I said that; honestly, what a t**t. I was offered £40,000 to do Big Brother but I turned it down – I didn’t want to be cancelled. That was in the days when it could ruin people’s careers. I’m a bit of a shop steward, so if I see something that’s not right, I’ll stand up for that person. Cameo saved my bacon during lockdown. I get £22.50 per message, and I was doing five or six a day then as I wasn’t getting any money from the government and there were no live shows happening. My expectation was to have four children. I’m one of five. My mum was one of 11. My dad was one of seven. Irish Catholics. I love being in a big family, but I couldn’t get pregnant. I went to see my gynaecologist and he said, “Oh, my dear, you’ve got the works. You’ve got endometriosis, scar tissue on your fallopian tubes, and fibroids. You’re never going to get pregnant,” so that’s why I had to go down the IVF route. It was traumatic physically and mentally. We were successful on the third attempt and that’s when I had twins. Steve would have liked to have a son too, but in a way we did. One of our daughters was really girly, girly, and wanted to dress up as in dolls and be a dancer, and the other one wanted to play football and play with the boys. We would still end up on a Sunday morning at the football field, so it didn’t matter we didn’t have a boy. Steve and I have been married for nearly 35 years and we’re polar opposites. We’re still together because we get on. I like him. I think he’s funny. We laugh a lot and we rarely argue, although we’re very different. I’m really optimistic about everything. My cup is overflowing; it’s not half full. Steve’s is almost empty all the time. He’s always looking at reasons why something isn’t going to happen rather than why we can make it happen, but sometimes I’m too positive in thinking everything’s going to be rosy. Maybe I do need reeling in a little bit. It works because we balance each other out. If something happened to Steve tomorrow, or if he left me, I wouldn’t replace him. I don’t want another partner. I’m really happy in my own skin. I’ve got really great mates, I’ve got fantastic kids, I’ve got my family around me. I would never want to get in bed with another man. I wouldn’t want another man to see me naked. Not even Giles Brandreth. The Fizz perform at Retrospective Festival, Sherdley Park St Helen’s, Liverpool on Friday 11 September