Sometimes it's hard for pop artists, isn't it? When Britney feared she was becoming irrelevant, she reached for the bottle labelled ?substep? and shaved her head, while J-Lo?s relative obscurity in recent years was remedied by a genuinely insulting and lazy attempts at songs about dancing and drinking too much.
But nothing keeps a musician relevant like an assault charge and an addiction now, does it?
Sarah Harding of Girls Aloud announced today, just after a story about her and boyfriend Theo de Vries kicking lumps out of each other came out this week, that the couple met in rehab for their respective drinking problems. Now, it's not that we're taking a pop at recovering addicts and victims of domestic abuse. Far from it. In fact, you go, girl!
The, er, blonde one from the pop group is facing charges of assault after a particularly violent row with said boyfriend on holiday in Austria.
When they should have been skiing, eating Muesli together or enjoying the work of pioneering Austrian filmmaker Sascha Kolowrat (thanks, Wikipedia), they were emptying mini-bars to avoid temptation, but eventually sneaked in some wine and everything ended up ‘a bit Tekken’.
Obviously, domestic abuse is never funny, but it could be just the thing to revive Girls Aloud and Harding?s personal stock.
Look at history: when noted feminist Dr Dre had a hilarious misunderstanding with a female American rapper and “television personality” Dee Barnes in 1991, it didn't affect his bad-boy image, and he went on to redefine hip-hop. Chris Brown took issue with ex-girlfriend Rihanna, and look at him now; his fan base is unflinchingly loyal (to a genuinely terrifying extent). Harding can even look at her pal Cheryl Tweedy/Cole/Whatever, who went from abuser of toilet attendants to national treasure in less than 5 years. It just works.
So it's not all bad, Sarah. Just switch to Ribena and stop hanging out with dickheads, and you could be a talent judge in a few years? time! Great!
This was a guest article by Euan L Davidson who is planning on assaulting as many people as possible in a bid to become the next Joe Swash or something.