Treading a different path

Not only has Natasha Bedingfield gone double platinum in the UK, been voted Hot New Talent of 2004 by Smash Hits, and secured a million pound recording contract in the US, she also managed to appear in men’s mag FHM wearing substantially more than a bikini. “[In] the video for her first hit, Single, she may have done a lot of hair tossing, but she avoided giving the highly sexualised looks to camera most sexy young singers would be expected to manufacture,” says an admiring Guardian interviewer. “It was the same line she refused to cross for FHM, and it has made her something of a role model for young girls who have no desire to walk around in clothes more suited to a strip lounge than a school playground.” Bedingfield was born in the UK to Kiwi parents and spent her childhood between South London and NZ.