Carol Decker: Pressure to look good is ‘ridiculous’ now

T’Pau’s Carol Decker has said rising stars like this year’s Love Island contestants are under a ridiculous amount of pressure to “look like Barbie”.

The singer, 60, said “appearance is more criticised” now than it was when she was launching her career.

She said: “I think even young men now, you see how guys are just buffed and ripped if they’re trying to be famous and the girls just seem so…

“I watched the last episode of Love Island… and they’re just so over made-up, they’ve got too much make-up on, too many hair extensions.

“The pressure on them to all look like Barbie is ridiculous.”

“It’s handy if you’re nice looking, it doesn’t hurt,” she added.

“In my youth, I wasn’t too hard on the eye myself, and I made the most of it but now, I just think the pressure is incredible, it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Decker, who is set to compete in the new series of Celebrity MasterChef, found fame with T’Pau in the late 80s with hit songs such as China In Your Hand and Whenever You Need Me.

She said while the music industry has changed she believes it is still tough for new artists.

She said: “In my day you put a band together, you did your demo tapes, you sent them off to record companies on a cassette, with a little picture your mate had taken of you, and you got in a crappy transit van and gigged in loads and loads of horrible pubs and hoped that some A&R man would come and see you.

“And that was hard, it took me years to get a record deal.

“I’m assuming it’s still hard, but in a different way.”

She said with technology and social media, people can make a high-quality product more easily now but that they are then “competing with the entire world”.

MasterChef is a new challenge for the star, and Decker said one of the tough moments was cooking for paying customers.

The kitchen she was in was a very male environment and she was “conscious not to look like the little woman that can’t cope”.

She said: “I’m used to that anyway having been in the music business for over 30 years, and it always having been largely male orientated.

“I’m used to having to stand my ground, and not give them any excuse to say, ‘She’s just a girl’.”

Celebrity MasterChef 2018 starts on BBC One on August 23.