Claire Richards found it "hard" when Steps weren't taken seriously.

Steps

Steps

The 40-year-old singer - who is joined by Faye Tozer, Lisa Scott-Lee, Ian 'H' Watkins and Lee Latchford-Evans in the band - has revealed that during their peak in the 90s, the 'Chain Reaction' hitmakers never got invited to all the VIP bashes because they weren't considered "cool".

While Claire admits their hit song '5,6,7,8' was a cheesy pop song, she says they took the rest of their music seriously.

Asked if it bothered her being labelled a "camp fun" group in an interview with London's Metro newspaper, she admitted: "We definitely resisted it.

"For us, it's always been serious.

"Obviously 5,6,7,8' was a novelty song but beyond that were were a proper pop group.

"People did sometimes consider us a bit of a jokeand it was hard."

Claire says that they struggled to get nominated for awards too.

She continued: "We wouldn't get nominated for certain awards and we wouldn't get invited to the cool stuff because we weren't cool, which was hard whem you're 23.

"Now we really don't care. We embrace it."

The five-piece got back together for their 20th anniversary last year for a tour and new LP 'Tears on the Dancefloor' - which hit number two on the UK charts - and Claire was delighted they'd proven people wrong with their comeback.

She said previously: "I think when everybody first heard we were releasing another album, they were like, 'Pffft'. But they just have to eat their words, which has kind of happened throughout our career. The statistics speak for themselves."

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