The Cheeky Girls are a Romanian singing duo consisting of identical twin sisters Gabriela and Monica Irimia. 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 the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...

Biography

Gabriela and Monica were born to Doru and Margit Irimia. Their early life in Romania consisted of studying

gymnastics Gymnastics is a group of sport that includes physical exercises requiring Balance (ability), balance, Strength training, strength, Flexibility (anatomy), flexibility, agility, Motor coordination, coordination, artistry and endurance. The movem ...

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 of ...

and touring with the Hungarian State 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 channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

'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, and television personality. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman production and songwriting team, he co-wrote and co-produced many UK hit singles. An av ...

and

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

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 is one of the four elementary mathematical operations of arithmetic, with the other ones being addition, subtraction, and division. The result of a multiplication operation is called a '' product''. Multiplication is often de ...

label, part of

Telstar Records Telstar Records was a British record label that operated from 1982 to 2004. Background Telstar Records was founded in 1982 by Sean O'Brien and Neil Palmer with a government loan of £120,000. It was launched as a specialist compilation marketi ...

. " 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 Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describes ...

, 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 ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...

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

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

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

. 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 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 tabloids that former Liberal Democrat MP

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 the ...

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 The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

minister," when the Irimias were facing deportation to Romania. The couple announced their engagement in April 2008 after Öpik proposed in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, but the engagement was short-lived and a break-up 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 Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

{{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 Romanian all-female bands 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 English-language musical groups from Romania