Shakespears Sister's 26-year fall-out down to being pitted against each other

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Shakespears Sister's 26-year fall-out was due to being pitted against one another by "divisive personages" within their team.

The 'Stay' hitmakers, made up for former Bananarama star Siobhan Fahey and US musician Marcella Detroit, finally put the past behind them after more than two decades of being estranged 12 months ago, after the former plucked up the nerve to get in touch with her old bandmate after attending a special yoga class for "intense inner work and growth".

For the first time, the pair have explained what was really happening behind the scenes and how all these years later, they discovered that their friendship broke down because of "miscommunications" from the people around them which they both misinterpreted and led to a "fraught atmosphere" in their final days as a duo in early 90s.

Siobhan recalled to The Sun newspaper's Bizarre column: "The s*** around us got in the way of our friendship and then the mutual paranoia built up.

"The environment around us . . . there were certain personages who were divisive.

"There were a couple of incidents. I think in the past few months of our touring I was counting down the days because it was so difficult.

"The atmosphere was so fraught, we weren't speaking. It was no fun."

On how yoga motivated her to reunite with Marcella, despite having so many "unresolved emotions", she added: "It was something that I had parked many years ago, and I don't like confrontation.

"But after intense inner work and growth, I finally grasped the nettle.

"It took a lot of courage for me to do it because I knew I had so many unresolved emotions around it.

"But I also knew that if I didn't do it, I would never be able to make my peace with what was a glorious past.

"I started doing a deeply spiritual form of yoga, Kundalini, which has really helped me to evolve as a person.

"It took a lot to get to that point where you step out of the blame game."

Once the initial awkwardness was over, the pair were able to immediately "clear the air" after pinpointing the "misconceptions" that had taken place years ago.

Marcella admitted: "I didn't know what to expect. Should I bring my boxing gloves? It was emotional and a little bit bumpy at first, maybe a little uncomfortable.

"But we cleared the air. There were misconceptions on both our parts and it was mostly due to miscommunications from the people around us at the time.

"We were able to discuss it like, 'Oh that's not really what happened at all'. It was good."

Siobhan - who founded the group in 1988 - axed Marcella from the band in 1993.

Marcella found out she had been booted out of the duo when Siobhan's publisher read out an acceptance speech at the 1993 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony after Shakespears Sister's second studio album 'Hormonally Yours' had won Best Contemporary Collection of Songs.

In the speech, Siobhan wished Marcella "all the best for the future" and added "all's well that ends well".

Siobhan, 60, ended the project herself in 1996 but in 2009 she revived the name and released album 'Cosmic Dancer' in 2011.

But the record failed to chart and the project disappeared again.

Once they put their feud behind them, the pair realised they have an "easy, free-flowing creative connection" in the studio, which led to them working on new music.

Siobhan said: "We've got very similar attitudes to life and certainly we have a ridiculously easy and free-flowing creative connection."

Shakespears Sister will release their new single 'All The Queen's Horses' on May 15, followed by greatest hits record 'Singles Party' on July 19.