Cover of Claire Richards
Have you ever had that hideous dream where you are suddenly butt naked in public?
Well, imagine if someone rolled you out in a nice photography studio, popped on some unnecessary high heels and snapped some photos of you in the nud before splashing them across the front cover of a magazine. That’s probably how Claire Richards feels.
However, it can’t be as traumatising for the Popstar to Operastar contestant (plug!) as she and her unreliable metabolism seem to have made quite the career out of it. Does anyone else feel like not a week goes by without seeing some sort of photo shoot featuring the ex Steps star in some state of undress?
She used to be famous for cowboy hats and 5,6,7,8, but now we just associate her with acres of flesh and diet tips. Over the years since Steps, Claire’s weight has yo-yoed between 10 stone and 15 stone and back again. Now she is a size 16, and admits:
'I felt like after all the weight-loss features I’d done, I owed it to people to be honest about this. My husband also encouraged me to do the shoot so I could see how lovely I am – and I’m trying to believe him! I’m obviously disappointed that I’ve put weight back on and I’d be lying if I said I was more comfortable being a size 16, but I’ve got to stop beating myself up.’
She reckons staying as slim as she was was like ‘a full time job’ and she would rather focus on more important things in her life:
'For me, staying thin is like a full-time job, and I’d rather spend that time looking after my kids and focusing on my career.'
Without sounding like our mums or a massive cliche, Claire really does look gorgeous whatever size she is. But then again, we would say that, she was always our fave member of Steps, after H, of course.
Read more in this week’s Closer magazine, on sale now
Click here for the daily Met-Art Gallery. Never be disappointed :-)
