Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding has died aged 39 after a battle with breast cancer. Writing on her daughter’s Instagram account, her mother said that she passed away on Sunday morning, describing her daughter as “a bright, shining star.”
In a moving post next to a black and white image of Ms Harding, she announced the news saying: “It’s with deep heartbreak that today I’m sharing the news that my beautiful daughter Sarah has sadly passed away.
“Many of you will know of Sarah’s battle with cancer and that she fought so strongly from her diagnosis until her last day. She slipped away peacefully this morning.
“I’d like to thank everyone for their kind support over the past year.
“It meant the world to Sarah and it gave her great strength and comfort to know she was loved.
“I know she won’t want to be remembered for her fight against this terrible disease – she was a bright, shining star and I hope that’s how she can be remembered instead.”
Harding had put up a courageous fight against the disease, and had shared her battle on Instagram and in her recently published memoir, ‘Hear Me Out.’ She first revealed just over a year ago, in August 2020, that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, which had devastatingly spread to other parts of her body.
Alongside a photo of her in a hospital bed after receiving treatment, she told her followers that she was undergoing weekly chemotherapy.
“I am fighting as hard as I possibly can,” she wrote in the post. “There’s no easy way to say this and actually it doesn’t even feel really writing this,” she said as she told fans “it was the right time” to share the heartbreaking news.
Earlier this year, in an extract from her memoir published in the Times, she wrote: “In December my doctor told me that the upcoming Christmas would probably be my last.” Harding said she didn’t want an exact prognosis, just “comfort” and to be “pain-free.”
Harding was born Sarah Nicole Hardman in Ascot, Berkshire, on 17 November 1981. Raised with two half brothers, she had a succession of jobs including a BT phone operator, a Pizza Hut waitress and a nightclub promoter before landing her break in music.
Her meteoric rise to fame came when she successfully auditioned for UK reality talent-search show Popstars: The Rivals back in late 2002. Her vocal capabilities and wide-eyed energy caught the hearts of the judges and the nation. It was on that ITV programme that Harding won a place in British-Irish girl band, Girls Aloud, alongside Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh.
The success fulfilled a dream Harding had possessed since her father, a session musician, started bringing her to recording studios when she was three years old.
“It was all I wanted to do,” she told The Sun. “I always loved being the centre of attention and ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to be a star.”
Girls Aloud are Britain’s biggest-selling girl group of the 21st Century, selling 4.3 million singles and four million albums. They scored 21 UK top 10 singles between 2002-2012, including four number ones. Their impact in the Ireland was just as incredible; their hit single ‘Sound of the Underground’ remained at number one on the Irish Charts for a full 19 weeks in 2002.
Other memorable top hits include Love Machine, Jump, Call The Shots and The Promise. The last of these earned the band a Brit Award for best single in 2008.
The group disbanded in March 2013 following the conclusion of their ‘Ten: The Hits Tour.’
TV and music stars have been among those to pay tribute to the immensely likeable and vivacious popstar.
Former Spice Girl Geri Horner tweeted: “Rest in peace, Sarah Harding. You’ll be remembered for the light and joy you brought to the world.”
Rest in peace, Sarah Harding. You’ll be remembered for the light and joy you brought to the world. X
— Geri Horner (@GeriHalliwell) September 5, 2021
Socialite and reality TV’s Calum Best, her former boyfriend, lead the tributes to her, writing that he was “so blessed” to have known her.
Sharing a picture of them together he wrote: “… this one hits home, this is so sad, so young, so much life, so much talent.
Before she died, Sarah Harding wanted to tell her story. She had lived a “wonderfully full and colourful life” and she was grateful to have achieved “above and beyond anything I dreamed of when I was a little girl,” she wrote in her emotional memoir which she finished in February 2021.
In the end, Harding died peacefully at home – but she will always be remembered as a dynamic, vibrant life force of British and Irish pop’s most defining bands.