Sugababes Show Off Mutya Replacement

Only yesterday, The Sugababes announced that Mutya Buena had left the group after seven beautiful years of looking all grumpy in photos and mumbling answers in interviews.

It took all of a day to find a replacement for Mutya. And the brand new Sugababe - Amelle Berrabah - seems to fit the Sugababes bill perfectly: she’s a bit funny-looking and she isn’t really smiling in the new group photo. Ah, it’s like Mutya never left.

For the last few weeks, The Sugababes (CDs) had been
performing as a duo on TV. Heidi Range and Keisha Buchanan struggled on
to perform their Beautiful rip-off touching
new single Ugly because Mutya, we were told, was ill. However, if you
a) watch as much daytime TV as we do and b) intrinsically trust people as little as
we do, you begin to smell a rat.

In fact, The Sugababes were
putting the Halliwell ‘98 plan into action - Mutya wasn’t ill, she’d actually left the group. But why? Mutya announced in a statement that:

"My decision to leave the band at this point is based purely on my personal reasons… For a long time I have been discussing with Heidi and Keisha our plans for the future and it got to the point where I honestly felt that the commitment I would need to make to Sugababes over the next 12 months was something that would become compromised by me. Clearly that wouldn’t have been fair to Heidi or Keisha or most of all to our fans."

For some groups that would spell the end, but not The Sugababes - they’ve got an album to flog and a tour with Take That to soldier through. So they quickly found a replacement - 21-year-old Amelle Berrabah from Hampshire. Here’s what Amelle had to say about joining The Sugababes:

"For years I’ve dreamt of breaking into the music business but never did I dream of waking up one day to be the third Sugababe."

While the existing Sugababes have said:

"Our management introduced us to Amelle as someone
they knew with an amazing voice, who looked great and, just as
important, was already a big fan of the band. When we all met her, we instantly knew she was the only person to share the rest of the journey with us."

Statements that could be translated as:

"Yeah, Sugababes, whatever. I’d join the Man Boy Love Association if it got me on CD:UK."

And:

"Shit, we don’t want to lose any money. She’ll do."

Read more:

Sugababes Unveil New Band Member - BBC

[story by Stuart Heritage]