EXCLUSIVE: Former Sugababes star Mutya Buena opens up about partying, anxiety, depression and choosing her daughter over her career in revealing new book Real Girl
Performing songs from the age of seven at weddings and birthdays, Mutya Buena and her dad Roberto would be rewarded with a big glass filled with coins and notes from grateful guests.
Just six years later, in 1998, she would be a Sugababe, part of one of Britain’s biggest girl bands and able to buy her parents a house with the proceeds of her first contract. But fame came at a price and she now realises that at one point she had only one day off in an entire year.
In her new book Real Girl, 40-year-old Mutya says: “Some of the adults we dealt with cared more about our worth than our wellbeing. As long as we were making money for them, they couldn’t give two sh*ts about what was going on in our heads or our hearts as children.”
READ MORE: Christmas shoppers snag limited-edition beauty box worth over £186 for just £28
Things had started off so well when Mutya sang at those parties for the London Filipino community. Aged nine, she appeared on Michael Barrymore’s TV show My Kind Of People, singing Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All.
Fast forward a couple of years and Mutya had met Keisha Buchanan and was still singing – but also smoking cigarettes stolen from her mum on the way to school.
Her career may never have begun had her dad not been working in an Asian food shop in Acton, West London. A regular customer, Ron Tom, had managed the girl band All Saints and Roberto told him his own daughter was a great singer.
It was a pivotal moment for Mutya. Within days, Ron and producer friend Don-E had Mutya singing in the studio with another 13-year-old girl, Siobhan Donaghy. The session went well and later, when Keisha came to the studios to watch her pal Mutya, Ron asked if she could sing.
Mutya writes: “Before long, Ron had all three of us singing together, and when he heard the result – the special tight blend that we had straight away – he announced gleefully, ‘My sugar babies!’ And so that’s how we began. We started out as the Sugarbabies but soon found out the name had already been taken by an American gospel group, so had to change it. Cue: Sugababes.”
The band spent the next months perfecting their sound. But Mutya admits she also “got quite nifty at stealing other people’s spliffs and sneaking out to puff on them”.
Mutya and her bandmates were handed a cheque “for the kind of money you dreamed of” and it bought a new home for her parents. But it also meant she had cash to spend on partying, and she recalls some doormen were happy to let a pop star into their clubs even if they were underage.
“Instead of pacing myself, I went all out, chasing as much fun as I could find, trying to make up for the youth I was missing out on,” Mutya writes.
Her partying got out of hand, leading to a £15,000 taxi bill as cars ferried friends into London for a night out on the town. She would sometimes go straight from parties to promoting a record with the band on TV shows such as GMTV or CD:UK. She says: “I couldn’t do it now; I love my sleep too much! Back then I barely knew what sleep was.”
With the Sugababes, Mutya had four UK number one singles, an additional six top-ten hits and three multi-platinum albums. But not everything was perfect. Paperwork Mutya found when writing the book shows she had only one day off in her schedule for a whole year.
It took its toll. She suffered from anxiety and depression, survived an attempted rape attack and after becoming a mum, aged 20, left the band when Tahlia was born in 2005. She says: “I chose my daughter over my career. …I don’t regret it.”
Later solo work included working with George Michael and supporting Prince at London’s O2. But issues remained and she spent her 27th birthday in a therapeutic hospital.
Mutya had some more problems including being made bankrupt in 2014 when she sold off assets to pay her debts. Several abusive relationships left their mark as well, but Mutya returned to perform with Keisha and Siobhan in 2012, reforming as MKS.
The girls won back their name and began to perform again as the Sugababes in 2019. Since then they’ve toured and played Glastonbury twice but take things at a less hectic pace.
Now wiser than in her teen years, Mutya says she only drinks on special occasions. She adds: “It still amazes me that people want to turn up and see us after all this time.”
Real Girl by Mutya Buena, published by Bantam, is out now.
