Girlbands Forever Viewers Raise Complaint About Girls Aloud's Absence
After the success of last year’s Boybands Forever documentary, it’s now the turn of iconic British girl groups to take their place in the spotlight.
Executive produced by Louis Theroux, the three-part series Girlbands Forever debuted on BBC iPlayer earlier this week, featuring interviews with members of some of the UK’s most popular girl bands, as well as those who helped them on their journey to pop domination.
Among those featured in the doc are Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards, Eternal’s Kéllé Bryan and Mis-Teeq’s Sabrina Washington and Su-Elise Nash, as well as Kerry Katona, who rose to fame as a member of the band Atomic Kitten.
However, while the documentary charts the rise of bands like All Saints, the Sugababes and, of course, the Spice Girls, pop fans couldn’t help but notice one curious omission.
Despite widely covering the huge chart success of girl bands in the 90s, 2000s and 2010s, the documentary mentions Girls Aloud only once (in archive footage from Little Mix’s acceptance speech at the 2021 Brit Awards).
Girls Aloud were formed in 2002 on the reality show Popstars: The Rivals, and went on to release five studio albums during their time together, scoring 20 consecutive top 10 hits and four number ones.
Because of this, the group’s absence from the documentary left many viewers with a lot of questions…
Absolutely loving the new girl group docu on BBC - so interesting & right up my street...but how can you do a docu about UK girl groups & not even mention Girls Aloud?! Not even once...???? So weird.#girlbandsforeverpic.twitter.com/9NEiCKYDIm
— Samuel Bailey (@SamuelJB26) November 1, 2025
i don’t know how you can make a documentary about british girl bands and not denote any time to the greatest girl band britain has ever produced - girls aloud, whose music pushed pop music into new and exciting territories and hasn’t been matched, before or since. justice!! pic.twitter.com/nDYl4hrXWa
— george griffiths (@georgegriffiths) November 2, 2025
so strange how girls aloud have been completely omitted from this doc. I understand none of the girls took part, but was there some kind of request that they weren’t to be mentioned at all? They were THE girlband of the 00s - why not mention them? #girlbandsforever
— liv ???? (@liv_liv_liv__) November 2, 2025
Erm... Watched all 3 episodes of #girlbandsforever and as much as I enjoyed it, how on God's green Earth are we not mentioning Girls Aloud please?!?! pic.twitter.com/BL0QD7F3Jd
— Kimberley (@KimberleyW1983) November 1, 2025
The absolute snub of Girls Aloud in this Girlbands Forever series is a travesty.
— Michael (@mchlrchr) November 2, 2025
Searching for any reference to Girls Aloud in the @BBC’s #GirlbandsForever series. pic.twitter.com/voF4Ma0t3K
— And I’m Victoria, Malcolm... ✌???????? (@husseybyname) November 3, 2025
So not one mention of #girlsaloud on the #BBC documentary #girlbandsforever WTF!?!? One of the biggest girl bands of all time!! Are the producers ok hun!?!?!
— Lewis Eagle (@LewLewEagle) November 2, 2025
I’m not sure how you do a documentary on British girl groups and decide to leave out Girls Aloud. They, and the Sugababes, owned the 2000s and had far more, and more prolonged, success than Atomic Kitten. Not even the talking heads talking about their impact #GirlbandsForever
— Hollie Hirdt (@HollieHirdt) November 2, 2025
They did that #girlbandforever documentary but left out Girls Aloud and The Saturdays?
— Steph (@StephanieYeboah) November 3, 2025
Documentary on British girlbands and not a single reference to Girls Aloud or The Saturdays?
— Uncluche (@TheBlackHermit) November 4, 2025
this BBC series on girls bands from the 90s - 2010s feels unfortunately really incomplete. So many key players didn’t participate, and the show ignores Girls Aloud entirely. It could have been a much more thorough exploration but sadly felt quite low budget and lacking access. pic.twitter.com/LnwTPVfuvx
— C. (@cstsher) November 2, 2025
I'm sure there's a whole documentary to be made on what led to Girls Aloud being excluded from #GirlbandsForever. Maybe that's next year's big show.
— George Luke ???? (@georgeluke) November 3, 2025
HuffPost UK has contacted the BBC and Girls Aloud’s team for comment.
Ahead of the documentary’s release, Girls Aloud star Kimberly Walsh told Good Morning Britain that they had declined to be interviewed for the series as they were still riding high off the back of their 2024 reunion tour.
“When they approached us with this idea, we were in the best place ever, we’d just done this huge tour, we’d never imagined in a million years it would be as big as it was,” she explained. “We all connected so well and had the most amazing time, so it just didn’t feel like the right thing for us to do.”
However, it’s worth pointing out that other bands whose members were not interviewed for the series still had their own dedicated segments within the documentary, most notably the Spice Girls.
All three episodes of Girlbands Forever are now streaming on BBC iPlayer.