{"id":353785,"date":"2026-03-29T14:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T14:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/353785\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T14:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T14:29:08","slug":"nicole-and-natalie-appleton-look-back-she-was-my-home-away-from-home-during-the-craziness-of-all-saints-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/353785\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicole and Natalie Appleton look back: \u2018She was my home away from home during the craziness of All Saints\u2019 | Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicole (left) and Natalie Appleton standing with bicycles in 1982 and 2026<\/a>Nicole (left) and Natalie Appleton in 1982 and 2026. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Hair: Ciler Peksah. Makeup: Karin Darnell. Archive photograph: courtesy of Nicole and Natalie Appleton <\/p>\n

Born in Canada, Natalie and Nicole Appleton are singers best known as members of the group All Saints<\/a>. Raised between Ontario, London and New York, the sisters joined the band in 1996 alongside Shaznay Lewis and Melanie Blatt. After the success of their self-titled 1997 debut and a string of hits including the chart-topping singles Never Ever and Pure Shores, All Saints split in 2001. The sisters released music together as Appleton in 2002, and have since reunited with All Saints for three albums. Appleton\u2019s new single, Falling Into You, is out now.<\/p>\n

Nicole<\/p>\n

If I had to revisit one moment from my\u00a0life, it would be this \u2013 riding my bike around London with my sister during what felt like an endless summer holiday. Not only because it was great fun, but because I could never ride my bike as much as I did when I was six. I\u2019d\u00a0be exhausted and would get bum ache from being on the\u00a0seat for too long.<\/p>\n

I have three big sisters, so I was always dressed in hand-me-downs. Nat was really good at saving up her pocket money and going to the market to get a nice top, whereas if I\u00a0had a spare 70p, I\u2019d go straight to the sweet\u00a0shop. Fortunately for me I would often inherit her clothes at some point, such as the top I\u2019m wearing here.<\/p>\n

Even though we grew up in the middle of London, our childhood felt as if we were in the countryside. We were always outside with a big gang of\u00a0friends, and we knew everyone from every flat, from punk rockers to older people, dogs and teenagers.<\/p>\n

We look mischievous in that photo, but we never caused any trouble \u2013 apart from the occasional time we knocked on a door and ran away. If we got tired, everyone would head back to whoever\u2019s place was nearest and stand around the kitchen tap guzzling water. Orange squash if we were really lucky.<\/p>\n

I always wanted to perform. Around the time this picture was taken, Mum said to me, \u201cNic, I got you an audition.\u201d I was so little I had no idea what that meant, so I turned up to Sylvia Young [theatre school] and danced away to Flashdance. There was no pre-planned choreography or sense of pressure. I\u00a0did a couple of cartwheels, and that was enough to get in.<\/p>\n

Sylvia Young was the best school ever. Back then it was one big class, and I was the youngest by a long way. Emma Bunton was there, too \u2013 she\u2019s exactly the same as she was then, a\u00a0person with such a sweet, kind nature. Eventually, Nat joined, because she and I always wanted to stick together.<\/p>\n

double quotation markWe\u2019re still in contact with each other a hundred times a day. What do we talk about? Not much<\/p>\n

Mel [Blatt] and I were instantly best\u00a0friends when we met at the age of\u00a011 at Sylvia Young. After we graduated, we went our separate ways until I bumped into her at a cafe where I worked when I was 19. She told me she was in a band with Shaznay and asked if I wanted to join. I said yes, because I loved to sing. Once Mel and I reconnected, it was like no time had passed. Just like Sylvia Young, Nat quickly joined us, too, and that was it.<\/p>\n

Nat was and is my home away from\u00a0home and a total comfort during the craziness of All Saints. Working with my sister put no pressure on our relationship at all \u2013 we were always together as kids, and we didn\u2019t know anything different. When we started to have families we would spend every holiday together, too. Just after Gene [Gallagher, son of Liam] was born, we had one Christmas with Nat\u00a0and Liam [Howlett of the Prodigy, Nat\u2019s husband] where the turkey took for ever to cook, and everyone was so\u00a0pissed we ended up getting KFC.<\/p>\n

Gene was actually the one who suggested that my sister and I\u00a0make more music again. We were chatting and he said, \u201cMum, why don\u2019t you just\u00a0go in the studio with Auntie Nat? See what happens.\u201d Encouragement from my son felt like a real endorsement, and working with my sister is easy \u2013 it\u2019s the most comfortable and natural I could feel.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m proud of our relationship. We\u2019ve\u00a0never been in separate mindsets or pulled in different directions. We\u2019ve gone through it all together and, while we don\u2019t share bunk beds any more, we\u2019re still in contact with each other a hundred times a day. What do we talk about? Not much. Married at First Sight Australia, mostly.<\/p>\n

Natalie<\/p>\n

This is my happy place. I was nine, wearing a top from the market and posing with my bike outside our estate in west London. Nic and I loved those bikes \u2013 we treated them as if they were cars \u2013 getting our hands covered in grease and pretending we were mechanics. This little area of concrete is where all the other estates joined up, and it was the space where we would go roller-skating or\u00a0wash people\u2019s cars. We charged 10p a vehicle. A lucrative way to make money in the 80s.<\/p>\n

My dad is from Bow, and my mum is from Birmingham. They emigrated to Canada but Dad wanted to be back in England, so we moved to London when I was around five. The American accents come from the two years we\u00a0lived in New York when I was 11. We\u00a0wanted to fit in, so it just stuck.<\/p>\n

We had the greatest childhood in London. It was a real community full\u00a0of loads of kids and street parties. Whatever was going on, Nic was always with me \u2013 my bookend, my best\u00a0friend, my cute little sister with big brown eyes. Our temperaments were the same \u2013 playful and easygoing \u2013 although I\u2019ve always been a bit more serious. Nic and I didn\u2019t squabble, but I\u00a0sometimes did with my older sisters.<\/p>\n

Even though there were four of us in All Saints, being sisters didn\u2019t alter the dynamic of the group. We were all on the same page \u2013 there was no us\u00a0v\u00a0them. It was such a crazy time for all of us, and it took me by surprise entirely. I remember when we had our first meetings with the record company and I saw a piece of paper with our schedule on it. I asked what ROW meant and someone said \u201crest of world\u201d. I was shocked \u2013 I didn\u2019t realise the magnitude of what we were about to do.<\/p>\n

The 90s were lavish and there was a lot more money in the industry, but paying our advance back took a long, long time. There were so many fun opportunities \u2013 The Big Breakfast, Live\u00a0and Kicking, CD:UK and Top of the Pops. Sometimes, presenters did just ask us about our boyfriends or how we looked, but that was just the done thing back then. We had to get used to it. The whole All Saints experience was like being caught up in\u00a0a whirlwind. By 2001, when the group ended, it was like a pressure cooker. We ultimately needed to stop things for a while, but not for ever.<\/p>\n

Nic and I still talk on the phone every day and while I\u2019ll always say \u201cLove you\u201d \u2013 I should really tell her that I\u00a0love her properly more often. Because the older I get, the more I\u00a0admire who she has become. She is a great mum, a great auntie and, whatever we are going through, she\u2019s\u00a0always got my back. I couldn\u2019t live without her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicole (left) and Natalie Appleton standing with bicycles in 1982 and 2026Nicole (left) and Natalie Appleton in 1982…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-353785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}