‘I couldn’t give her another moment of pain’: Kimberley Walsh admits she hid her pregnancy from Sarah Harding during her cancer battle as the singer wouldn’t be able to have children
Kimberley Walsh has revealed that she hid her pregnancy from Girls Aloud bandmate Sarah Harding as she didn’t want to cause the singer more ‘pain’ amid her terminal cancer battle.
The singer, 40, fell pregnant with her third child in September 2020, a month after Sarah revealed she was battling ‘advanced’ breast cancer – with the chemotherapy ‘killing any chance’ she had of starting a family naturally.
Tragically Sarah died in September 2021 at the age of 39 without fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother.
Speaking on Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s podcast, Spinning Plates, Kimberley broke down in tears as she detailed her guilt at falling pregnant while Sarah battled cancer.
Heartbreaking: Kimberley Walsh has revealed that she hid her pregnancy from Girls Aloud bandmate Sarah Harding as she didn’t want to cause the singer more ‘pain’
Kimberley – who is mother to Bobby, six, Cole, four and 15-month-old Nate – said: ‘It was the most horrific time in some ways for me personally because shortly after I think I found out she was poorly I got pregnant again and I almost didn’t want to tell her.
I’m getting really emotional thinking about this. In reality I kind of knew she’s not going to have any kids – she isn’t going to be able to – and she always asked me about the boys all the time.
‘And I didn’t tell her for a while. And I knew it was weird because I was like “I should call her and tell her, like it’s amazing news”.
‘And I just worked it up and I think I just thought “No, I can’t tell her at this moment”.’
Gone too soon: Tragically Sarah died in September 2021 at the age of 39 without fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother (pictured in 2009)
Yet Sarah found out about the news on her own accord, with Kimberley laughing as she recalled: ‘And Sarah being Sarah just called me up and she was like “Ay, I’ve just seen you’re having another one, are you alright?”
‘And I was like “Yeah, I know I’m sorry”, and I was so embarrassed for not calling her but I couldn’t bear to give her another moment of pain.
‘But she was just amazing. She was like “My mum’s just seen a picture of you, I can’t believe you’re pregnant again”.
‘So I FaceTimed her. We had a long conversation and I felt so much better.
‘She was amazingly strong. It just blew me away because honestly in the band I don’t know if I really saw the strength in the same way I saw all of her vulnerability and all the other sides of her.
‘And I don’t know if I ever gave her credit for the strength that she did have, because when it actually came to it, it was mind-blowing.’
Family: Kimberley is mother to Bobby, six, Cole, four and 15-month-old Nate
The pair spoke together about Sarah’s fertility woes, with Kimberley revealing: ‘She was amazing and she did speak to me about that – about the fact that she wasn’t going to have kids and we were really honest about it.
‘When she finally came down and met the baby and spent some time with the boys she was actually loving it, and asking all these questions. It completely broke me. But I’m so, so grateful that I had that time and the kids had that time.
‘When I talk about her they know exactly. They did see much more of the poorly Sarah because of the timing, but kids just take it at face value. They’re like “That’s the mad Sarah that you tell me about”.
Kimberley went on to note that her newborn son Nate ‘saved the day’ at Sarah’s funeral as he provided ‘hope’ for the grieving guests.
She said: ‘I took the baby to the wake, not the funeral service, I was still breastfeeding, I thought “I can’t leave him”. But they were all saying that him being there kind of saved the day a little bit for them.
‘They were like “we just needed it so much”. He was literally like a pass the parcel giving everybody that little feeling of hope.’
In her autobiography Hear Me Out, Sarah revealed that she cried about never having children – and branded her split from ex-fiancé Tom Crane ‘one of the biggest mistakes of my life’.
Bandmates: Sarah soared to fame in Girls Aloud with Cheryl , Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle and Kimberley (pictured in 2007)
In her book, Sarah explained how she had the emotional realisation about never becoming a mother during a phone call with former bandmate Cheryl.
She wrote: ‘I was saying how we never thought Nadine [Coyle] would be the first one of us to have a child, and that now three of them have kids.
‘It might seem odd to worry about not having children when I don’t even know how much of a life I have left, but it’s there.
‘The truth is, even if my prognosis was better, it still wouldn’t be on the cards because of all the chemotherapy I’ve had.
‘That treatment, harsh as it is, will have killed any chance I might have had. It’s making me cry just thinking about it.’
If you have been affected by this story, call Macmillan Cancer Support on 0808 808 00 00
Candid: In her autobiography Hear Me Out, Sarah revealed that she cried about never having children (pictured in 2018)
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