GIRLS Aloud star Nadine Coyle had to be comforted by her bandmates after breaking down in tears on stage.
Nadine, 39, began to cry at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena during Girls Aloud‘s heartbreaking tribute to their friend and fellow star, the late Sarah Harding.
Fans had been told by Nadine, Cheryl, Kimberley Walsh and Nicola Roberts that they would be singing along to Sarah in an unreleased version of I’ll Stand By You.
Sarah – who tragically passed away from breast cancer in 2021 – had sung the track solo and both the band and the sold-out crowd joined in as a video of her played out.
But as the Girls Aloud tour came to an end, the emotion during the final show became too much for Nadine and she began to cry.
As she wiped away her tears, the Irish star stood huddled among Cheryl, Kimberley and Nicola as they finished the song.
The Girls Aloud Arena Tour kicked off in May and the band have performed 30 shows across the UK and Ireland.
Nadine found herself welling up on Sunday night in Liverpool, during the last night of the tour.
Last November, Girls Aloud announced they would be hitting the road in “celebration of Sarah, our music & our incredible fans”.
Sarah was diagnosed with breast cancer in early 2020 but initially kept the news quiet.
The singer publicly revealed her diagnosis that August and tragically explained that it had spread to other parts of her body.
Sarah admitted it ‘didn’t feel real” and said she was undergoing weekly chemotherapy sessions.
Heartbreakingly, Sarah passed away in September 2021 aged just 39.
Following her death, the devastated girls began thinking of ways they could honour their bandmate and close friend.
Cheryl later admitted in a radio interview that Sarah had expressed her wishes for them to “do something” in her memory.
She told Heart FM: “I did speak to Sarah one on one at one point, this was in the later stages when she was really poorly though, and she’d said to me, ‘I hope you four do something when I’m not here’ and in that moment I couldn’t entertain that conversation. I was trying to keep her up.”
The girls announced they were reuniting in November 2023 and would be going on tour in honour of Sarah.
Confirming their comeback, Cheryl said at the time: “We all started talking about the possibility of doing something to celebrate Girls Aloud’s 20-year anniversary a few years ago.
“The anniversary seemed like an obvious thing that we would celebrate.
“But when Sarah fell ill all priorities changed. She passed away a year before the anniversary and it just didn’t feel right, it felt too soon.
“But now, I think there is an energy that does makes it feel right.
“It’s the right time to celebrate Sarah, it’s the right time to celebrate the band and the right time to celebrate the fact we can still do this 21 years later. That’s a big honour in lots of ways.”
Sarah featured heavily in Girls Aloud’s concert, with her image flashing up on a giant screen from the offset and throughout the show.
During I’ll Stand By You, sung by Sarah, fans were asked to turn on their torches on their phones and light up the arenas.
Following their final gig in Liverpool, Girls Aloud wrote on their official Instagram: “Liverpool!!! What a way to end #thegirlsaloudshow. We will never forget this weekend.”
