Fleur East - 'Why I nearly said no to playing Tina Turner'

She is sensational on stage, a whirlwind of energy. Yet when Fleur East was offered the starring role in the long running Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, her initial reaction was to turn it down. "I saw Karis Anderson as Tina and told my husband there is no way I can do this," Fleur, 37, tells me. "He said, 'Why are you talking yourself out of it?' I said, I've never done musical theatre before.' He replied, 'Well why not do it?' In the end, the regret of not trying was stronger than my fear of failure.

"I always think, 'Am I good enough to do that?' There's a journey to get to the point that I go for it. I'm a girl from Walthamstow, London E17, I'd never dreamt of being in the West End..." And yet here she is - a commanding presence, belting out classic songs like Proud Mary and River Deep, Mountain High, and taking us through the real Tina, Anna Mae Bullock's heartbreaking lows and heartwarming highs. Rehearsals for the long-running production were understandably intense. "Six weeks of singing and dancing all day, learning the script, blocking, stage combat...There's a lot involved.

"There are 25 scenes and I'm off stage for one of them. Most costume changes happen on stage, but it's so much fun! It's surreal. Sometimes I forget I'm me. I become Tina in the moment."

Watching Fleur on stage, you might struggle to believe she was once a shy child. "Mum and dad had loads of parties at home and they would make me get up and sing - I used to dread it. I had butterflies in my stomach all day. I hated it. I liked singing in my bedroom, but even in front of family friends, I'd sometimes have to face the wall." Home was a modest two-bedroom East London terrace house where Fleur shared a bedroom with sister Keshia, five years her junior.

Their late father Malcolm had an unusual way of keeping his daughters fit. "Dad would make us do ten push-ups as soon as we got of bed, before breakfast, before we'd even brushed our teeth. He would say, 'Go on then, give me ten'." Was he ex-army? "No, he was a painter and decorator, but he believed in having discipline. He never let us stay in bed after 9am, even at the weekend, he was a get up and seize the day man."

Fleur has inherited Malcolm's regimented approach to life. She and co-star Karis do four shows each a week and, on those days, Fleur hosts her four-hour, 6am Hits Radio breakfast show with Will Best and James Barr, then takes a nap and a shower before hitting the Aldwych Theatre stage as Tina. Her husband, fashion designer Marcel Badiane-Robin, likens her to the Energiser Bunny. "He says my mind is in Disneyland and that I find the joy in chaos. He says he'd never know if I was stressed - I just get on with it. I spent so many years trying to get here, I'm not going to stop. I can do a stage show and a radio show and be a mum..."

Their daughter Nova is 15 months, but Fleur has "my village" to help - mum Irene, a retired nursery nurse from Ghana, and Marcel. Growing up, her house was full of music. "Me and dad would watch live concerts together, Michael Jackson, Simply Red, Stevie Wonder, George Michael...and Tina was right up there. Her energy was incredible." Fleur, whose childhood musical loves included The Spice Girls and Destiny's Child, was 13 when she conquered her performance phobia by singing with her schoolmates at Ladders, an after-school club at George Mitchell School in Leyton. "I believed in safety in numbers," she smiles.

The girls appeared on The X Factor in 2005, calling themselves Addictiv Ladies, aged 16. "We just wanted to know what Simon Cowell thought of us. Mum said no to me auditioning but relented because one of the girls' elder brother came with us." They reached the live shows, but in the week one elimination, it was them or Chico...and it was Chico Time, his time to shine.

Fleur's music-loving parents backed her pop dreams but insisted she got a degree first - so she studied journalism and contemporary history at Queen Mary University of London. Numerous jobs followed - sales assistant, champagne waitress, market researcher - all the while performing in girl groups and touring with DJ Fresh. At one student union gig, she recalls, "There were four people in the venue five minutes before we went on. The entertainment secretary said you might as well do it. So we sang for thirty minutes for four people. They all stayed."

In 2013 Fleur sang on minor hit One In A Million, a collaboration with Drumsound & Bassline Smith. The following year she auditioned for X Factor, this time solo, coming second in the 2014 series. Her semi-final rendition of Uptown Funk topped the iTunes chart. Simon Cowell's Syco label signed her and Fleur's Top 3 2015 single Sax went platinum. Her debut album, Love, Sax & Flashbacks, went silver. But subsequent singles stiffed. Why? "Spotify had just landed and the label didn't know how to adjust to it." she shrugs. "Before streaming, you would release singles building up to the album. But all the singles were streamed immediately."

She spent the next two years recording new music, trying to reproduce Sax's success. "In the end I forced Syco's hand. I marched in and said, 'If you can't make something happen, please let me go'." They complied. Fleur's 2019 independent single Favourite Thing was upbeat, afrobeat-tinged and had an infectious melody but it conked out at No 80. A tour to support her second album, 2020's Fearless was scuppered by the Covid lock-down. Yet Fleur continued to have a strong TV presence. She was a contestant on 2018's I'm A Celebrity (finishing 4th), and 2022's Strictly Come Dancing. She hosted The Void with Ashley Banjo, was a regular on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and returns to Strictly It Takes Two in September. From the fruits of her success, Fleur helped her parents - who had split when she was 14 - pay off the mortgage on her childhood home and bought a house nearby. She also helped her mum settle bills and took her father and sister to France on holiday.

Fleur started dating Senegal-born Parisien Marcel in 2010, they married in Morocco in 2019 and moved to Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, two years later. "It's very different from Walthamstow, but I love it," says Fleur. "It's nice to escape London for a bit. When we first moved here, I was shocked because I wasn't hearing police sirens at night. I really struggled with that. But now I love the peace and the friendly neighbours." Their colourful home houses her father's vinyl LPs "Sade, Bob Marley, the Bee Gees...they bring back wonderful memories." Sport is Fleur's favourite relaxation. She has loved cycling since childhood and enjoys golf, but can't currently play - "There's no time, you've got to have four hours minimum, I might go to the driving range. Hitting balls is like meditation. "I do relax though. My daughter is quite regimented with sleep. I walk a lot; I enjoy family time. I love comedians like James Brown who's about to do Edinburgh."

Fleur runs hair brand, Kurl's Kitchen, with Keshia and wants to act more. "I'd love to do more acting, now I've tasted it a little. A big movie maybe. Life is there for the taking. Moaning gets on my nerves. Just get up and go for it! My parents were always keen to encourage me and I'm so grateful to them for that. They gave me my work ethic. I wouldn't be Tina without them."

*Fleur East stars in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical until September 13. tinathemusical.com