The chat with Robbie that left me shaken

And other tales from my years of working with the boy bands

Whenever people want to talk to me about magazines, it is almost always because they want to talk about Glamour. It never gets old to me to hear how people loved it, and it means so much if you’re someone who’s messaged me, or even stopped me in the street, to tell me that.

But it also means that sometimes even I forget that my magazine history stretches way beyond Glamour. I was late to watching the BBC docuseries, Boy Bands Forever, but I’m so glad I did. Boy did it hurl me down the time portal.

I’ve only written fleetingly about my days working on TV Hits magazine, and I’m ashamed to admit I’ve concentrated more on the chaos and insanity of our non-stop working schedule. It took this insightful look at the phenomenon of UK 90s boy bands to remind me: it was a blast. And I think one of the main reasons for that was how closely we worked with the major boy bands of the day.

Before the Spice Girls blew the back doors off of the record industry, it was all about the boys. And back then, when magazines were the pre-iphone source of entertainment, they mattered. Even the ones that weren’t the icons of the decade like Smash Hits or Loaded or Marie Claire. Like TV Hits. And for our market, it was the boy bands who had us flying off the shelves.