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) "Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)" is a song by '' Popstars: The Rivals'' contestants the Cheeky Girls. Written by Pete Kirtley and Tim Hawes (under the name The Cheeky Boyz) and the girls' mother Margit Irimia, the song was released as a single on ...

", 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

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, s ...

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 The Hungarian State Opera is the national opera company of Hungary. Located in Budapest, it is a busy institution, with over 200 operas each calendar year, on top of extensive educational programs, ballet, and musical theatre. The company employs 1 ...

. 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 enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

's ''Model Behaviour'' and more importantly ''

Popstars ''Popstars'' is an international reality television franchise aimed to find new singing talent. Serving as a precursor to the ''Idol'' franchise, '' Popstars'' first began in New Zealand in 1999 when producer Jonathan Dowling formed the girl gr ...

: 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 Waterm ...

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 bec ...

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 Multiplication (often denoted by the cross symbol , by the mid-line dot operator , by juxtaposition, or, on computers, by an asterisk ) is one of the four elementary mathematical operations of arithmetic, with the other ones being additi ...

label, part of

Telstar Records Telstar Records was a British record label that operated from 1982 to 2004. Background Telstar was founded in 1982 by Sean O'Brien and Neil Palmer with a government loan of £120,00Telstar RecordsIt was launched as a specialist compilation mar ...

. "

" 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 ''Take Your Shoes Off'' is a blues album by Robert Cray, winning the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2000. It was released on April 27, 1999 through the Rykodisc label. The album won a Grammy A ...

" 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 bankruptcy action in court owing to not having been paid by their now-defunct record company,

. 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 Andrew Ferguson Neil (born 21 May 1949) is a Scottish former journalist and broadcaster who is chairman of ''The Spectator'' and presenter of '' The Andrew Neil Show'' on Channel 4. He was editor of ''The Sunday Times'' from 1983 to 1994. He f ...

. 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 tabloids that former

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Li ...

Lembit Öpik Lembit Öpik (, ; born 2 March 1965) is a former British politician. A former member of the Liberal Democrats, he served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Montgomeryshire in Wales from 1997 until he lost his seat at th ...

had broken up with long-time fiancée, ITV weather presenter

Siân Lloyd Siân Mary Lloyd (born 3 July 1958) is a Welsh television presenter and meteorologist from Maesteg. She was the United Kingdom's longest-serving female weather forecaster, having appeared on ITV Weather for 24 years, from 1990 until 2014. Bi ...

, 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