I've every reason to Feel Good after finally beating anorexia; MADASUN'S VONDA BARNES HAS A NEW SINGLE, ALBUM AND A NEW LIFE.

STUNNING Vonda Barnes has vowed to put a traumatic and harrowing past well behind her after the singing sensation cheated death not once but twice.

And her latest single is a testament to the star's brand new attitude to life.

Its upbeat title, Feel Good, is something she would have been incapable of singing a few years ago. For the Madasun front girl fought a lengthy and frightening battle against the deadly eating disorder, anorexia.

As Vonda, 22, and bandmates Vicky Barrett and Abby Norman get set to release their new single, Feel Good, tomorrow, she talked to Sunday Mirror about her illness, her new positive outlook and, of course, that photograph of her, now famous, breast.

"Feel Good is a great summer time song" she said. "It is all about enjoying yourself, having a laugh and feeling good about life."

The raven-haired beauty's positive attitude stems directly from her teenage battle with anorexia - a battle which almost killed her.

Now her message to sufferers is that the disease can be beaten and life can begin again.

"It's important to be positive," Vonda said. "You have to take the good and bad together, but learn from the negative things that happen.

"That way you can take something positive from it and better yourself.

"There has been a lot of stuff about me in the press because I suffered from anorexia. And I told them myself because I didn't want to open a paper one day and see someone that I knew telling the story of my anorexia."

"Over the last number of months there have been a lot of reports about eating disorders in the papers and on the television.

"I wanted to show that there are people like me out there who have suffered from the disease and are now doing fine and doing what they always wanted to do."

Vonda battled the disease at the age of 12 and recovered successfully, only to face anorexia again when she was 16.

"It is such a battle particularly if you're as ill as I was. When I was 17 I was down to four stone and was close to death.

"But I went to hospital for three and a half months. I had therapy every day and I had to do exercises to try and stretch my stomach.

"It's a terrible thing because you know what is wrong, you know you're ill but then when you look in the mirror, you see something else entirely.

"I continued with the therapy and got through it. You learn from other people who are suffering the same thing as you and you also learn about yourself.

"And it has made me who I am today - a very caring and sensitive person."

Even though she has recovered from the disease, Vonda admits she still has to be very careful that she doesn't slide back into her old eating habits.

"Sometimes you can feel a bit self-conscious but if that happens, I just phone my mum and talk to her about it.

"And most of the time now, I feel great. I love what I'm doing and people like the band, so that's really good."

But wherever there are top 10 singles and fame, there's also a photographer waiting round every corner.

Vonda found this out when her denim catsuit revealed a lot more than she bargained for at a recent party to celebrate 100 shows of the children's programme SMTV.

One of her breasts made an unscheduled appearance when she was chatting to host Declan Donnelly - and the result was that a photo ended up all over the papers.

"It was page three in some of the newspapers," Vonda laughed. "It didn't really affect me but the first thing that came into my head when I saw it was: 'Oh God, what's my dad going to think?'

"But he just laughed about it and said: 'That's a lovely breast,' so it was OK.

"Everyone was joking around with me and it was all good fun. I took it better than I actually thought I would.

"In the past I always looked at shots of other people that that had happened to and thought: 'Oh my God, imagine if that happened to me!'

"But at the end of the day there's nothing you can do about it and I was fine."

Madasun are due to release their debut album, The Way It Is, on August 28 and before that they will do a show at the Rose Of Tralee festival today.

"We're really looking forward to getting back to Ireland," Vonda said. "We've played Vicar Street and we were in Dublin on St Patrick's Day as we supported Five at their Point Depot show.

"It was a great day - absolutely mad.

"So we're looking forward to the Rose of Tralee festival and after that we're playing FM104's Monster Day Out in Dublin on September 3.

"The album will be out by then too. It's great - it's a fusion of all our different flavours and we're really proud of it.

And. hopefully. our Irish fans will like it too."

Article Details

Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Author:	Quigley, Maeve
Publication:	Sunday Mirror (London, England)
Date:	Aug 20, 2000
Words:	853
Previous Article:	SUNDAY MIRROR INVESTIGATION: MINISTRY OF PORN; Sordid secrets of the civil servant entrusted with helping poverty stricken women and children...he...
Next Article:	Singer Dara finds love at Lord's castle.