Pussycat Dolls alum Ashley Roberts is recalling the grueling toll being part of the best-selling girl group had on her.
Roberts, 43, joined the popular burlesque turned pop group in 2003, and the band eventually struck big on the music charts with their breakout song “Don’t Cha” in 2005.
Behind the scenes, however, she and her fellow bandmates — Nicole Scherzinger, Melody Thornton, Jessica Sutta, Kimberly Wyatt and Carmit Bachar — had to deal with rigorous schedules that took a toll on her mentally and physically.
“I remember once we were in three countries in one day. Eventually, my body just got to the point of shutdown. I was really, really sick,” she told The Times of London in an interview published Tuesday, July 8.
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“I remember being on stage in New York with the crowd singing back the lyrics and thinking, ‘Oh, this is really happening,’” Roberts said of the band’s relentless pace. “It was a fast, extreme rocket ship. There were no discussions around, ‘How is your mental health?’ It was a different era. Now, artists are coming forward to talk about their struggles and concerts are rejigged.”
According to Roberts, things got so bad that by 2010, doctors feared she’d had a brain aneurysm. It turned out to be stress, exhaustion and burnout.
“I remember saying [in the hospital], ‘I need to get on a flight to Germany. I’ve got a show to do. You gotta give me something.’ That was the mentality,” she said. “I was having extreme headaches, being sick. They found viral arthritis in my knee. I couldn’t do anything really. But that was my drive.”
In 2010, the Pussycat Dolls parted ways following the release of two successful albums. However, Roberts left the group feeling the effects of the previous years.
“And then when I finally got out of the Dolls [in 2010], I had eczema all over my legs, shingles across my face and a stomach ulcer,” she said. “An acupuncturist told me then, ‘If you don’t scream, your body’s gonna scream for you.’ It was a manifestation of ‘go, go, go’ for years or ‘grind, grind, grind,’ an accumulation of being on the road at a time when nobody really spoke up about anything.”
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She added, “There was also this feeling that we could be replaced in some way. But also there was my own drive, growing up as a dance competitor. So it was a combination of the two.”
The Pussycat Dolls — sans Thornton — announced a comeback in 2019 and released a new track, “React.” However, a planned 2020 U.K. tour was canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the group quietly disbanded again.
