Street dance group Diversity rocketed to fame after famously beating Susan Boyle to be crowned winners of Britain's Got Talent in 2009. They have since performed for the Queen, outside 10 Downing Street and have had a nationwide sell-out tour. Now, Diversity, made up of eight members – Ashley, Ike, Perri, Jordan, Terry, Mitch, Sam and Warren, are launching their own brand of fitness classes that will enable fans to re-enact their moves while simultaneously getting a good workout.HELLO! Online caught up with the group for a quick chat about their new venture, meeting the Queen and how Britain's Got Talent turned their lives upside down…
We were nervous about meeting the Queen…You'd think that she would be really overpowering but she wasn't at all. The best way to describe her after meeting her is that she's just quite cool. She's sweet, really nice. We had to learn the correct etiquette before meeting her – you can't speak to her until she speaks to you.Performing at the O2 arena was incredible… That's definitely our favourite moment as a group. That feeling when we walked out into the arena of our show, that was sold out, it was totally unbelievable. We'll never forget it. We can't wait to do it again at the end of this year!Britain's Got Talent totally changed our lives… Beforehand, we were just a relatively unknown dance group. Now, we do shows all over the world. Our lives were completely turned upside down. Before we won, we just had normal jobs but since that day, none of us have worked a normal job. As dancers, we get respected as a group. Normally it's hard for dancers as they're in the background… We used to do gigs and change in the toilet! Now we live our passion. It's really good.Now we work even harder… When we're not performing, we train seven hours a day, every day. We have to prepare for performing. You can't go into a show and have the same moves that you had last year.
Our private lives are still the same… After our training, we go home to our families and our girlfriends. It's the same as it was before.We created this dance class because we wanted to help people get fit our way…People come up to us very day and ask if we do dance classes, but we can't because we're too busy. So when Fitness First asked us to do something for fitness, it seemed like a really good way to combine the two things and create a class that could be taken all around the country.It combines dance and fitness… You will learn how to dance but at the same time it can be purely a fitness class. You come in, do the moves and leave them in the studio. We've picked music from electro to dance to Michael Jackson. You're going to learn moves that you've seen us do in routines but it's been put together in a way that's been repeated and looped and it's a real cardio workout. It's dance and exercise put together. What you learn from your fitness regime, you can take away to the dance floor.It caters for all levels…We’ve amended the routines and added in more complex steps to challenge anyone who is an experienced dancer so hopefully there should be something in there for everyone no matter what level they are.Weight loss will follow…You just have to look at Jordan [member of Diversity]. He lost nearly seven stone from dancing. He started to dance more and started to eat a little bit better and it dropped off him.We'd love to work with Emeli Sande… We’re such big fans of Emeli Sande. We love her music so it'd be great to teach her some moves to go with her music. In terms of best celebrity dancers, we've have to say Beyonce. She really is Queen B.Performing for Jackson Five was immense…We did the Jackson Five tribute concert along with Neyo, Beyonce, Jamie Foxx and Christine Aguilera. It was totally unbelievable.The strangest rumour about us involved the Olympics…There was a story that we didn't want to be involved in the Olympics. It was to do with a clash of timings and we were never asked so that was a load of rubbish. Why would we ever not want to do the opening ceremony? It was amazing. One of the best shows we've ever seen in our lives.Fitness First will launch ‘Diversity Street Dance’ from 25th March in selected clubs across the UK.
