MyVillage meets the Cheeky Girls - December 2002

The Cheeky Girls were the surprise act on Pop Rivals - two nearly identical twins from Transylvania (via East Sussex) who wooed judges Pete Waterman and Geri Halliwell with a song written for them in half an hour by their mum, or ’Cheeky Mum’ as she likes to be called.

Who can forget the look of complete astonishment on Pete’s face when the twins broke into their song? It was one of the TV moments of 2002 and the twins are now releasing their own single ’The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)’. We caught up with Monica and Gabriella to find out exactly how cheeky they really are .

You auditioned for Model Behaviour before Pop Rivals. Were you unsure whether you wanted to be models or pop stars?
Well, every girl’s dream is to become a supermodel, no? (Laughs). We are no exception. Model behaviour was the first thing we did - that was in June and then Pop Rivals came up.

Why did your mum write your song for the audition?
We wanted to sing Money Money Money by Abba - but then we realised it didn’t suit us. So at the very last moment we asked mum to write something because she always wrote songs for us when we were very small. She has lots of experience - 15 years of violin. It only took her half an hour, so Mum is going to be writing all our songs from now on.

What did you base your ’cheeky dance’ on?
It is a combination of moves really, with a special little chorus - the how you say in English - swing? I don’t know how to say it! (Laughs).

You look very fit. Do you exercise every day?
Oh yes, especially now. Every hotel we stay at has to have a gym. We have our own routine we follow.

So can we expect a Cheeky Girls exercise video?
Yes we are definitely thinking about it!

What’s it like being twins?
When we were small we were like two drops of water. Now we are more different. If you look for it, Monica has fuller lips. But we used to swap in front of teachers, and get away with it!

What about boyfriends? Did you swap in front of them?
(Both girls look horrified!) Oh no - they did not have the chance to have both of us! ((Ed. That’s not quite what we meant, but anyway .))

What’s the cheekiest thing you’ve done?
When we were in the last year at school, we had a teacher that when he speaks he spits! So I took in an umbrella and opened it up in lessons - I got chucked out of the class!

by Mandy Carter


Biography

Born on October 31 1982 in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, Romania Monica and Gabriela Irimia began studying ballet and gymnastics at an early age.  They toured with the Hungarian National Opera but in 2002 moved to the UK with their mother in search of fame.

Auditions for Popstars: The Rivals and Model Behaviour saw the twins gain some fame and allowed them to release their own single The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) in 2004, spending five weeks in the top five despite being voted the worst song of all time in a poll of the same year.  They have since released five other singles including (Hooray! Hooray!) It’s a Cheeky Holiday! and Cheeky Christmas.

In 2004 the girls formed their own record label, XBN and are working on a second album with two singles scheduled for release in early 2007.