How Myleene survived Hear'Say

Myleene is nothing if not a trouper, however. A classical pianist who trained at the Royal Academy of Music and has worked in West End musicals, she resolved to pick herself up, brush herself down and get on with the show.

After the demise of Hear'Say, she signed a £1 million record deal and released a classical album. Despite rumours that she was subsequently dumped by the record company, she says she is currently working on a second album.

She is also doing an Open University degree in astronomy and she has just been appointed the first ever ambassador for the charity Youth Music in Britain, which is why we meet. The charity aims to provide opportunities for under-privileged children to make music.

Today, Myleene, 27, is no longer the 'busty one'. She's shed two stone and looks elegant in black loose-fitting trousers, rather than the rather tarty, in-your-face Myleene of Hear'Say fame.

She's now able to laugh at her experiences with the ultimate manufactured pop band. She's also secure in her personal life, reconciled with Graham Quinn, Hear'Say's former security chief and the man she plans to marry.

After three years together, they separated briefly in November, when reports surfaced that Quinn was wanted by the Irish police. He had fled his native Dublin in 1996 after being arrested for having a stash of heroin said to be worth £1,500. In April this year, he appeared before a court in Ireland.

'It was a very scary time for me,' she says. 'Drugs scare me. My dad stuck a picture of Leah Betts on to my computer when I was a teenager and that was enough to put me off for good.

'Ten years ago, Graham got involved in drugs and had a bad problem. He did wrong on a monumental scale and got caught. He was 19 and scared. He thought he'd end up in prison so he ran away.

'At the court appearance, the judge told Graham: "You've paid your price." He said that the way in which Graham had changed his life was an example to lots of kids.

'Graham is an amazing person who stuck by me through my hard times. I'm going to stick by him. I'm a stubborn person and very loyal. I believe he's good.'

When Myleene says this, I catch a glimpse of the steely determination that propelled her back into bed with the monster that is celebrity - but in truth she's not your average B-list wannabe.

The oldest of three children born to a Filipina mother, Magdalena, and Austrian father, Oscar, she grew up in Norfolk. Her father, a sea captain and a leading Viennese musician, was away for six weeks at a time and Myleene worked hard to impress him with her school grades and exam marks for the piano and violin.

She got three 'A' grade A-levels but turned down a place at King's College, Cambridge, to pursue her music career.

Upon completing a course at the Royal Academy, she was offered a job in the musical Miss Saigon, after which she worked as a session musician, touring with the likes of Cliff Richard and Michael Crawford.

Hear'Say, though, offered that first golden ticket to fame. She and the four other band members - Kym Marsh, Suzanne Shaw, Danny Foster and Noel Sullivan - were selected from thousands of young hopefuls on the hugely popular ITV show Popstars to form a group in February 2001.

Within two months, they had made chart history by becoming the first British act to top the singles and album charts simultaneously with debut releases.

From the start, Myleene felt isolated from the rest of the band members. She shared few common interests with them and, after training at music school and in the West End, was frustrated by the lack of discipline.

'We were supposed to work as a team, but we didn't know each other. In truth, they probably thought I was a bit strange. They'd say "Don't you want to come and play on the PlayStation?" when all I wanted to do was go and look at the stars, because I love astronomy.'

The differences between the band members started to escalate and the dreadful rows began.

'We should have been having the happiest time of our lives, celebrating the fact we'd sold millions of records. We were taking helicopters everywhere and living like kings. But it was actually very draining. I put on two stone through living on curries and warmedup pizza for breakfast.'

Hear'Say's second album, released in December 2001, managed only to limp in at No24 in the charts and their first single from it reached No4.

By the beginning of 2002, Kym Marsh - who had two young children - had decided to cut her losses and run, launching a solo career and embarking on a high-profile relationhip with a soap star. The band struggled on for a further six months with a new member, Johnny Shentall, replacing Kym.

'We tried to carry on but there were fights every day,' says Myleene. 'We couldn't continue like that.'

In November 2002, the band decided to split. It fell to Myleene to attempt to sort out the group's contractual obligations before going away.

'We didn't need another financial disaster on our hands,' she says. 'We'd already had one when Kym left. Woolworths were phoning up asking what we were going to do with their 100,000 Hear'Say Easter Eggs which featured her.'

Since the split, Myleene seems to have fared slightly better than the other band members. Kym Marsh's solo recording career has hit the buffers and she's now turned to musicals, while Suzanne Shaw's disastrous liaison with 'love rat' Darren Day has made more headlines than her singing.

Danny and Noel have made the odd appearance in musicals and on TV.

Perhaps they don't have the drive that Myleene has. The cd:uk presenting job is, she knows, a last chance at fame and she's desperate to make it work.

This time she's only too aware of the pitfalls that go hand-in-hand with celebrity and I'm sure that, whatever happens, she will survive.

For more information about Youth Music and Myleene's involvement with their activities, log onto www.soundstation.org.uk