EXCLUSIVE: Eurovision legend Cheryl Baker has had a sparkling career after winning with Bucks Fizz in 1981 and still pays tribute to her iconic performance in today’s gigs
Bucks Fizz legend Cheryl Baker has looked back on her Eurovision success and her monumental performance which still replicates on stage to this day.
The band won the show back in 1981 with their hit track Making Your Mind Up and stole the show with her skirt being ripped off on stage – which she reckons is what secured the group the win.
Cheryl, 71, still performs with her band nowadays and always ends her gigs with the Eurovision track, paying tribute to it with an iconic skirt rip, a nod at their song contest win.
The talented singer spoke exclusively to Daily Star at the Which Bingo Awards which took place in Gibraltar earlier this week where she spoke about the show which is hitting screens this weekend.
Cheryl said: “I’ve had my skirt ripped thousands of times. I mean, the fact that we still do it, you know, and I’m like 192 now and I’m still ripping my clothes. It’s brilliant.
“We always do Making Your Mind Up at the end of the show and they all get their cameras ready for the big moment.”
When asked if she ever gets nervous before filming still, she claimed to feel more at ease with her band members rather than scary solo shows.
Cheryl shared: “That doesn’t nerve me but performing on my own, I get terribly nervous without the band, it’s as if you’re on a tight rope, but if you fall on your own and something messes up, there’s no one to turn to.
“For example, when I was on stage in Footloose the musical, and I sang the first line of the song, and then I froze and my mind went blank. The fear, honestly, I could have been sick on stage at the West End in front of the whole audience, because that it was and the fear was actually what made me forget.”
The star also surprised fans when she spoke about the origin of her stage name after being named Rita Crudgington at birth.
Cheryl explained: “In 1975, I rang an agent to say that I’d be interested in joining this band. And the guy on the other end, his name was Lynn Miller, was the manager, and he said, ‘What’s your name?’ And I said, ‘Rita Crudgington’. And his exact words were that ‘That will have to go’.
“I didn’t care, I’m still Rita, my friends and family, my neighbours, if you know me, you call me Rita. To be honest, it’s harder for everybody else than it is for me, but I answer to both names.
“Funnily enough, when I first met my husband, he knew me as Cheryl for 12 years. But when we started going out together, he started calling me, Rita, and I though it sounded really weird. But he said, ‘Your family call you Reet, so I’d be weird if I could be Cheryl’.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
