‘It doesn’t feel like she’s gone’: Cheryl reflects at Sarah Harding fundraiser

Cheryl has said “it doesn’t feel like she’s gone at all”, as she took part in a charity run in memory of former Girls Aloud bandmate Sarah Harding.

The surviving Girls Aloud singers Cheryl, Kimberly Walsh, Nadine Coyle and Nicola Roberts joined fans and supporters in Race For Life For Sarah, a 5k run to celebrate Harding’s life and raise money for breast cancer.

Harding died aged 39 in September after revealing she had breast cancer which had spread to other parts of her body.

Speaking at the charity race in London’s Hyde Park, Cheryl said of Harding’s death: “To be honest, I’ve never experienced or anticipated this grief.

“You know, I’ve lost grandparents when I was younger and I lost a friend when I was younger but nothing like this, the feeling of shock and disbelief and it still lingers now to be honest. I still can’t quite believe it’s real.”

When asked if a Girls Aloud reunion without Harding could be a possibility, Cheryl added: “It hasn’t even been a year. It doesn’t feel like she’s gone at all.”

Roberts, 36, Coyle, 37, and Cheryl donned pink T-shirts with Race for Life wording as they ran together in Hyde Park, while Walsh, 40, took part remotely as she was not able to join them in London.

When the three singers took to the stage in front of attendees in Hyde Park, Roberts held her phone up and said she could not reach Walsh at that moment and suggested she might be “warming up” for her own race.

The girl band was formed on TV show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002 and went on to have hit tracks including Sound Of The Underground and The Promise.

Cheryl added that it was great the surviving Girls Aloud members could be involved in Race For Life For Sarah, saying: “You feel so helpless, you’ve never felt hopelessness like it, it’s horrendous.

“So the fact that she had one request that we can fulfil is like great for us because it just feels like we’re doing something.

“We felt like there was nothing we could do for so long.”

The band’s fundraising efforts are to set to conclude with a large gala dinner later in the year.

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