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Bananarama stars unrecognisable in unearthed photos before bitter feud sparked breakup


Bananarama stars Keren Woodward, 61, Sara Dallin, 60, and Siobhan Fahey, 63, looked totally different when they first burst onto the scene in the 1980s.

The band are best known for their hits including It Ain’t What You Do, Venus, Love in the First Degree and Cruel Summer.

Between 1982 and 2009, they had 30 singles reach the Top 50 of the UK Singles Chart, and were listed in the Guinness World Records for achieving the world’s highest number of chart entries by an all-female group.

Keren and Sara were childhood friends who met Irish musician Siobhan Fahey when they were students.

Their former producer Pete Waterman described them as “punks” who would “fight with him about anything”.

“Siobhan was the feistiest one. Trying to get her to focus her talent on the band was difficult, and we have not spoken in a very long time,” he admitted. 

It was also claimed there were arguments between the bandmates themselves.

Amid reports of them falling out of taxis after big nights out in clubs, Siobhan left the band in 1988.

Soon after this, she joined the line-up of Shakespears Sister with Marcella Detroit.

It was later reported the group’s break up was messy and that Keren and Dallin did not speak to Siobhan for a long while.

Siobhan spoke to The Guardian about her departure, revealing: “It was a combination of the fact that, musically, we’d gone absolutely full-on pop, at a time when I was feeling lost and dark and depressed in my life.

“I was obsessed with the Smiths. It had been a real pressure cooker, the three of us being together 24/7 for years. It couldn’t continue.”

Siobhan also spoke out against the Stock Aitken Waterman “Hit Factory” of which Bananarama were a part, claiming this was another reason for her decision to leave the band.

She added that she “couldn’t be in the studio” with Pete. 

The group did not speak after 10 years, with Siobhan calling the band’s break up “a painful divorce.”

She said: “There were sore feelings on both sides. I felt really isolated within the band for a year before I left. And they felt betrayed that I left.”

Siobhan was initially replaced by Jacque O’Sullivan, but when she departed in 1991, Keren and Sara continued to perform as a duo, performing in a sellout tour in 2017. 





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