The first album I ever got was a cassette copy of Bananarama’s “Greatest Hits Collection”. When I discovered pop music with their anthem “I Want You Back” i listened to it over and over. At the time I was too young to be allowed read pop magazines so i didn’t know what they looked like until I finally saw them in my friends copy of smash hits. But when I go the greatest hits that christmas I was surprised that there was a different girl on the cover. I learned that this girl was the original member of the band but not the girl that had appeared on their current hits.

It made no sense to me on that Christmas Day in 1988.

Jacquie O’Sullivan was the former lead singer of Rockabilly band the Shillelagh Sisters when she was called to a meeting and asked to replace Siobhan Fahey who was leaving Bananarama, then the biggest girlband in the world. Jacquie had four years of wild partying in the band until she was suddenly not there any more and Bananarama reemerged as a duo.

In this chat Jacquie talks for the first time about life in the band, her shock departure and life since. When she left the band she was one of the most famous women in the UK and she needed a job. She eventually fled to Thailand and led a very different life to that of a member of the biggest girlband in the world. Before coming home she found yoga and trained for two years to become a teacher.