The Cheeky Girls are a Romanian singing duo consisting of identical twin sisters Gabriela and Monica Irimia (both born 31 October 1982). After appearing as auditionees on '' Popstars: The Rivals'', they achieved success in the UK charts with four top 10 hits between 2002 and 2004. They are best known for their debut single, " Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)", which has sold more than 1.2 million units internationally. The Cheeky Girls released their debut studio album, ''PartyTime'', in 2003 which reached number 14 in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

Biography

Gabriela and Monica were born on 31 October 1982 to Doru and Margit Irimia. Gabriela is older by 10 minutes. Their early life in Romania consisted of studying

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and

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...

and touring with the Hungarian National Opera. Moving to the United Kingdom with their mother in 2002, the girls shot to fame as the Cheeky Girls after auditioning on two British TV shows,

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

's ''Model Behaviour'' and more importantly '' Popstars: The Rivals''. Following two appearances on the show with their audition, which had judges

Pete Waterman Peter Alan Waterman, (born 15 January 1947) is an English record producer, songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Water ...

and

Louis Walsh Michael Louis Vincent Walsh (born 5 August 1952) is an Irish music manager and television personality. He has managed Johnny Logan, Boyzone, Jedward and Westlife, four of Ireland's most successful pop acts in the 1990s and 2000s. He later be ...

not knowing what to say – Waterman was later quoted as saying they were the worst act ever – various record companies approached the Granada Press Office. The Press Office contacted Paul Holland at Granada Ventures, who was able to secure them a deal with the Multiply label, part of Telstar Records. " Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)" was swiftly recorded and released in the first week in December. Entering the chart at number two, the single remained in the top five for five consecutive weeks, four of them at number two. This was quickly followed up with two more top three hits, " Take Your Shoes Off" and " (Hooray, Hooray!) It's a Cheeky Holiday!". Their style of music is primarily disco-pop, aimed at the pre-teen market. Most of their songs are written by their mother, who also acts as their manager. On 4 August 2006, the ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' reported that the Cheeky Girls were "at rock bottom" and facing

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action in court owing to not having been paid by their now-defunct record company, Telstar Records. The article said that the women owed £4,500 in unpaid taxes, along with other bills, and that Telstar owed them £2.2 million. Later, it was reported that they owed £130,000 in total. In September 2009, the act released their Cheeky Girls make-up range, aimed at the young teen market. On 7 March 2013, the women appeared on the '' This Week'' BBC TV programme discussing the subject of

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...

immigration to the UK with host Andrew Neil. This followed a short video report by Monica talking about British fears of an invasion of benefit-seekers from their homeland. They previously appeared on the show on 10 July 2008.

Personal lives

In December 2006, it was revealed by the

tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid The Sopwith Tabloid an ...

s that former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik had broken up with long-time fiancée, ITV weather presenter Siân Lloyd, and was now romantically involved with Gabriela. Öpik "passed documentation on to the singers' constituency MP and spoke to a Home Office minister," when the Irimias were facing deportation to Romania. The couple announced their engagement in April 2008 after Öpik proposed in Rome, but the engagement was short lived and a breakup was announced three months later. In 2016, Monica married her fiancé of four years, Shaun Taylor, who works as a building contractor.

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links

The Cheeky Girls
on Myspace {{DEFAULTSORT:Cheeky Girls, The 1982 births Living people Romanian emigrants to the United Kingdom Identical twin females Musical groups established in 2002 Musicians from Cluj-Napoca Female musical duos Pop music duos Romanian pop music groups Romanian dance musical groups British pop girl groups British dance girl groups British Eurodance groups Romanian Eurodance groups Britain's Got Talent contestants Romanian twins Twin musical duos 2002 establishments in Romania British people of Romanian descent 21st-century British women singers Telstar Records artists