Wonder women!

Let us in on your secret beauty regimes!

Michelle: Basically we are surviving on fast food right now. If we had a nutritionist, he'd probably put us into hospital because we eat the worst food you'd think we'd be sick!

Kelly: We would like to say that we work out every day, but we really don't. We've had ab rollers in our bags for the past couple of months but we don't even use them, ha ha!

Beyonce: We only have like three hours to sleep let alone go to the gym! When we go on tour we try to work out, but we might do it once or twice every other week and that's it.

Are there parts of your body that you dislike? 

Kelly: I don't like my butt!

Beyonce: I don't like mine either. Actually there are a lot of things about my looks that I don't like, but I don't wanna pinpoint them because then everybody will notice them! The only things that I do like are my fingernails.

Kelly: She really has very nice fingernails, ha-ha! 

Michelle: Well, I like my shoulders!

So have you ever used body doubles in your videos?

Beyonce: Well, actuaily we did one time in Jumpin'-Jumpin' We had to play, so they used doubles then. They only used them for our hands and lips. But their body parts didn't look anything like ours! Their lips were really, really big!

Do you reckon you're true pop survivors? 

Kelly: The title of our new album and single totally fits Destiny's Child - we feel like we are survivors. And I have to give Beyonce credit 'cos she's the survivor. She wrote and produced the whole album. 

Beyonce: I' m blessed 'cos I got the opportunity. I wrote and co-produced Independent Women, Jumpin, jumpin and a lot of other songs on the album, but I think I didn't get a lot credit because I am a female. But I've proved myself now.

Is 'Bootylicious', your next single, all about ruderies? Beyonce: Bootylicious doesn't mean you have a big booty - it just means feeling good and sexy. It's like your mojo. So everybody is bootylicious! One night on our last trip to Europe I just couldn't sleep, and when I got up the word bootylicious was in my head. I was kind of scared to tell the girls 'cos it sounded so stupid, but we went into the studio to try it out and it turned out to be very hot.

Are blokes scared of you? 

Kelly: Well, they may find it hard to approach us. If anything, they should be happy we're independent women because we don't have to depend on them for anything. 

Beyonce: When you listen to this album there's not one song that talks badly about guys. Guys are our friends. Destiny's Child have experienced love and we've experienced some good guys, too.

Beyonce: is the talk of you going solo true, or just tittle-tattle?

Beyonce: No, some one made up those rumours. When we're asked, we say we'll do it one day, probably after the next album, which we haven't even started yet. 

We haven't signed any contracts but everyone jumped on it! Destiny's Child is our main priority and we are so excited 'cos this next album's 

just like wow!

Please tell us you will be touring soon?

Michelle: Definitely. We're working on a US tour starting this month and going through to August. Last October we came over to the UK, so we know we want to come back - we gotta come back.

Kelly: That wasn't enough. It's like taking a sip of a really nice cocoa, ha-ha!

Is there an award you have your eyes on? 

Kelly: We'd love a Brit. That would be so cool.

Beyonce: We performed at the Brits and it was one of our best performances ever. We knew we were doing the Brit Awards after the Grammys, but we didn't really know how huge they were 'cos we're from America! But it was huge, better than the Grammys for me.

Kelly: Elton John was in the audience!

You're such veterans of pop, can you still remember your first show? 

Beyonce: Yes. Our first show was ten years ago at a daycare centre and they had no idea what we were doing. They were just happy we were there.

Kelly: Well, actually they didn't really care if we were there or not, ha-ha!

You have quite a few fans now. Any strange happenings? 

Kelly: On a tour in the Midwest this cute little boy who was about 11 went, Hey, Destiny's Chi... And then he passed out! 

Beyonce: People have got Destiny's Child tattoos, too. And someone called her daughter Beyonce after me. It's very flattering, but really kind of weird, too. 

How are you coping with your ever-growing fame? Michelle: It's when people go like, Oh my gosh, you got skin too, and you go, Yes, I'm human!

Beyonce: It's really nice to sell all these albums and see all the fans, but it's scary to be too successful because you can become very strange. Most people who get that big have no privacy and I feel sorry for them. And now it's happening to us. 

Michelle: There are cameras being put in the windshields and it's all crazy. And we're like, just ask and you can take our picture. There's no need for all that!

Beyonce: But I know we have to be prepared because it's bound to happen.

Michelle:It's going to happen.

Kelly: Just you wait -the next time we'll be wearing disguises! 

- TOTP

My life as a stunt bum

Anita Hart is a stunt bottom - the behind, behind Cindy Crawford, Pamela Anderson and Elizabeth Hurley. When the stars need a backside to make them look good on screen, Hart's the woman. She's also the public - erm - face of Slendertone, the makers of electronic muscle-workout machines, whose latest campaign features Hart's backside in its new buttock-toning shorts. The sales pitch is simple: you wear this, you get that. 

In the publicity pictures, her bottom is frighteningly pert and round. It looks as if she's had rear Botox injections and cheek implants. According to David Lewis, the bottom psychologist hired by Slendertone, Hart's buttocks are psychologically, as well as physiologically, perfect. 

" The pert and round look favoured by most women is mirrored among primates," says Lewis. "When female baboons are fertile, their bottoms swell up, making males more attracted to them. Recent research shows that male baboons are sensitive to even the smallest differences in size. 

When I meet her for tea, her bottom is encased in Marilyn Monroe-printed jeans. I ask how she feels about being famous for just that one part of her. "Oh, very comfortable, I started off modelling for Frederick's of Hollywood, but I much prefer the adrenaline and the excitement of my stunt work." 

It wasn't her perfect behind that made the 29-year-old from America's Midwest famous, however: It was the rather more prosaic reason that she enjoys being blown up - with explosives, that is. Hart's first big stunt role was in the movie Fair Game, where she doubled for Cindy Crawford. "I went 35ft up in the air, then I was blown 35ft backwards into water. I was on elastic and it was a one-take deal. because we blew up the building. God, it was huge. I loved it. "And Crawford could sleep soundly in the knowledge that, even airborne, it would look like she had buttocks tight enough to withstand gelignite. 

Are there some things that she wouldn't do? "Well, my girlfriend was Demi Moore's double for years until GI Jane, and they asked her to shave her head. Shaving your head - can you imagine?" says Hart, tossing her expensively highlighted mane. 

Hurley is her favourite person. "She's not just beautiful on the outside, she's beautiful for her. It would be awful if she thought, 'She's me, and she's got a fat butt.' I couldn't bear it." 

Hart shows a photograph of her and Liz in identical spray-on leather jumpsuits from Austin Powers, looking weirdly twinlike. " Remember that scene in the shark tank, where she gets the dental floss out of her boots? Well, that was me. Oh, they made that leather so tight. They made it to our exact measurements, and when we got it on I was meant to be able to fight, but I couldn't move. Not even my arm. We both had to lose 5 lb. She's still really skinny and looks great. I would do anything for Elizabeth." Hart insists that to stay in shape for her stunt work, she never goes to the gym. "I have to work out. I prefer to shop. I'm very hyper. So I like to walk around. And I wear the Slendertone pants all the time." She says, sounding like an Infomercial. "A lot of girls have great bodies, but my thing is my butt, so this is what I do to keep it perfect." 

Hart wants to be doing stunts for the rest of her life. Jumps, high falls and being blown up make her flash that "I love adrenaline" smile. " I almost got married once, to a football player," she says. "but he didn't want me to do stunts, he wanted me to have babies. I loved stunts more." But she really doesn't want to be famous in her own right? "No, I'm happy to be in the shadows and anonymous, and only have people in the industry recognise me." It seems like her only driving force is the desire never to let Hurley, Crawford and Anderson down by having a less-than-perfect butt.'' 

And does she do naked stunts?

"Well, once, an actress had to do a shower scene and she wanted it to be my butt, not hers. It's someone I work with a lot, so I said I would do it for her. We were both very relieved when that scene got cut from the movie." 

And what's next up after the advertising campaign? "I'd love to be the double of whoever gets Terminator 3. Recently I was up for a Jennifer Lopez job, but I didn't get it for the best reason in the world - my behind! is too skinny. I can't think of a better way of losing a part." 

Go to the TV Times

Return to Mirror Magazine Contents