The group – who were formed out of the first Australian series of Popstars in 1999 and enjoyed a string of hits before dramatically splitting in 2002 – had earlier reunited for the inaugural Sydney edition of Mighty Hoopla back in February. Their early afternoon slot was one of the highlights of that festival, but still, few fans might’ve expected the group would then make the leap to the London version of the festival: Not least because Bardot never quite broke in the UK (their only single release there, Poison, only made it to number 40, a stark contrast to its status as a multi-platinum number one hit here in Australia).
But for the reunited members of Bardot – Belinda Chapple, Katie Underwood, Tiffani Wood and Sally Polihronas (Sophie Monk has distanced herself from the group since their initial split) – the opportunity to perform at the UK’s biggest pop festival appeared too good to pass up. This year’s reunion came as such a surprise because of how many false starts had preceded it. The group earlier attempted a 10-year reunion which never got off the ground. Three of the members then reunited over Zoom in 2020 to mark the 20th anniversary of their debut single – but by the time talk had turned to future plans, the reunion had whittled down to a two-piece of Belinda and Katie, who released new music as a pop duo called Ka’Bel.
As all this unfolded, Chapple released a memoir about her time in the group, 2023’s The Girl In the Band, which went some way to explaining why each member might have her own complicated relationship with the notion of reforming: Chapple wrote candidly about the financial exploitation the group suffered behind the scenes, as well as a shockingly sudden split that left several members devastated. Indeed, Polihronas noted on Instagram this week that even as recently as a year ago she would’ve said a Bardot reunion would never happen.
But she said that she realised a love of performing was “still calling” her, and she felt compelled to follow that passion, particularly with her 50th birthday approaching later this month (she’ll be the third member of the group to hit the milestone). “After years away from the stage, I realised something wasn’t quite finished. One day I heard myself say to a friend, ‘I just love shows. I love rehearsing. I love performing.’ It was a simple truth, but it hit me hard,” the Sydney-based mum of two wrote.
She said that when approached to reunite in January, the answer was an immediate yes: “Not because I wanted to relive the past, but because it felt aligned. Yes to London. Yes to my daughters seeing their mum doing something she loves. Yes to revisiting a chapter that still had something to teach me.” Fellow member Tiffani, now a Gold Coast mother of six children, said she was grateful to have more time to prepare for the London show after the rush behind the scenes to get the group ready for their brief Sydney slot. “For Sydney Hoopla we didn’t get a lot of time to get an outfit together - well we didn’t get a lot of time to get anything together lol so when London Hoopla was a go I had the chance to be more me,” she said, sharing her “Boho Cowgirl” stage costume on social media.
And encouragingly for fans, it seems like Bardot’s 2026 reunion might not have wrapped with these two festival shows. “We have ended our Hoopla 2026 journey on such a high, & behind the scenes spent so many days & nights working on getting Bardot back up & happening, that it would be a compete travesty not to continue,” the group wrote on Instagram yesterday. “So with that being said, stay tuned.”