ben foden

Una Healy wants to scream. “The worst thing about being in a pop band are the paparazzi,” fumes The Saturdays singer. “I was on holidays and they were in the bloody bushes. I had no idea. I was out there having a normal holiday and the next thing I’m all over the papers.”We’ve caught Healy at an awkward moment. Some unflattering paparazzi shots of the Thurles brunette have just hit the web.

Snapped on her way home from a London club the 28-year-old looks as if she’s swallowed a jellied eel: her cheeks are puce and puffy, her eyes appear to be pointing in opposing directions.

Adding to the insult, a gossip website has managed to misspell ‘Una’.

“Some of the photographers are good,” she says, calming down a bit. “They’ll take pictures of you looking good in a nice dress. That’s fine. They’re in your face. You know they are there. It’s the other ones, the nasty ones who hide in bushes.”

In other words, it’s simply another day in the life of an up-and-coming pop star. With Girls Aloud away trying to work out if they still even want to be in a group together, Healy and her Saturdays band-mates have the music universe at their feet.

To capitalise on the sudden absence of any meaningful competition, they’ve rushed out a new mini LP, just six months after their last proper album.

‘We’re a pop band. People can call us manufactured in that we sing other people’s songs. Doesn’t everybody in the pop industry? It’s stating the obvious. I’ve written songs. I’ve won song contests. I don’t need to prove to the world — ‘look at me, I’m a brilliant writer’.”

With a string of top 10 hits under her belt and a Saturdays’ reality television show soon to hit screens, it’s been a long strange journey for Healy.

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