Kelle Bryan has opened up on the racism she faced as a member of 90s girl group Eternal.
The 45-year-old Loose Women star revealed on Tuesday’s instalment of the show that, despite having sold over 1.5 million records, the trio was told by a magazine editor that Eternal would never feature on the front cover
“We were doing really well and we were the biggest selling UK R&B band of that time,” she shared. “We were told by a magazine that we weren’t allowed to be on the front cover.
“My management company at the time pushed and said, ‘Why?’ And they basically came back and said black people don’t sell magazines, and we were a predominantly black band at that time.”
Eternal featured Kelle and Louise Redknapp, alongside sisters Esther and Vernie Bennett, and had 14 consecutive top 15 UK chart singles.
Bryan added that she felt that not enough progress had been made in the magazine industry nearly thirty years on.
The star went on to reveal she “recently featured in a magazine and I was literally in the page before the back”.
“Yes it was a double-page spread but on the front cover was a celebrity that was white,” she said. “I did some research to see if they’d ever had a black woman on the front cover and I couldn’t find one. So unfortunately it does still happen today. It is systemic.”
The star’s comments come after Mis-teeq singer Sabrina Washington shared that she was told she “wasn’t aesthetically desirable” in the group’s heyday.
