Una Healy rose to fame as a member of girl band, The Saturdays, but we nearly saw her on an Iconic Irish series before that.
As the singer actually auditioned for RTÉ’s Popstars!
The singing contest ran from 2001-2002, and launched the careers of stars like the band Six, and Nadine Coyle.
Speaking on Today fm, Una explained how this was just one part of her journey as she tried to establish her music career.
“I did audition for the Irish Popstars. I auditioned for other talent competitions and didn’t get through,” the Tipperary native said.
However, Una never let the rejection stop her, as she said: “It never put me off, because I said to myself, ‘do you know what? I’m probably not ready yet. I can do better.'”
The mum-of-two credits the earlier days of her career for “toughening” her up.
“I think going out there, performing and gigging in front of all sorts of audiences…Toughens you up, singing in front of these lads and women very drunk, dancing around the place, shouting stuff up at you, spilling their beer into your P.A. system, having to deal with all of that.”
“I was actually going around at the time on my own. My parents used to come with me and help me set up my speakers, and my mixing desk, and I had a little set of lights that I would have at the front to light me up on stage,” she detailed.
“I had a CD of original songs, and I used to sell that at the end of gigs, for a few extra euro, a fiver I used to sell that for. I had done all that and had the years of experience,” she said.
So when she was offered an audition for The Saturdays, she was much better prepared, and wasn’t depending on it to find success.
As she explained: “I flew over to do the audition for The Saturdays, to be honest, I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. I wasn’t aware that it was going to become the success that it did. I was just like ‘this is an audition and if it doesn’t happen, I’ll keep going.'”
“I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time.”
