Entertainment

LOS ANGELES – They're not a singing group, but they play one on TV – and very successfully, we might add. But don't even begin to get into it about whether the Cheetah Girls are friends in real life.

SETH WENIG/The Associated Press

Adrienne Bailon (from left), Kiely Williams and Sabrina Bryan didn't expect Disney's 2003 Cheetah Girls movie to spawn a franchise.

"We're like sisters!" Adrienne Bailon declares. "People don't realize when we're not working together, we hang out together."

As she speaks by phone in a nonstop chatter that would quickly give away her hometown roots – if her Noo Yawk accent hadn't already – Ms. Bailon is busy getting settled in her new home.

"I just moved! Just got an apartment in Beverly Hills! I'm so excited!" she practically exhales into the phone.

She had shared a place with fellow Cheetah Girl Kiely Williams. When Ms. Bailon moved out, the third Cheetah Girl, Sabrina Bryan, moved in. "We all enjoy hanging out at the house," Ms. Bryan says.

There will be little time for that in the weeks ahead, however. The third Cheetah Girls movie, The Cheetah Girls: One World, premieres on the Disney Channel at 7 p.m. Friday, and many personal appearances likely will follow. A worldwide concert tour is being planned for the fall.

"We're growing up, and we all have such huge dreams we want to fulfill. But I would be onboard to do a fourth movie. Definitely," Ms. Bryan says.

The three were in their late teens when they became the Cheetah Girls for Disney's 2003 film of the same name. Ms. Bailon and Ms. Williams were recruited from R&B hip-hop group 3LW. Ms. Bryan, a singer-actress-dancer, had appeared on TV shows such as The Bold and the Beautiful and Grounded for Life.

The group figured The Cheetah Girls was a one-shot deal.

"I remember Kiely and I ... at the end of the first movie; we were just crying," Ms. Bryan says.

But the movie was a hit, the soundtrack went platinum, a concert tour grossed more than $25 million and a 2005 holiday album, Cheetah- licious Christmas, was a success.

When The Cheetah Girls 2 came out in 2006, it was a hit, too, and the soundtrack album went platinum. Another album, TCG, was released last year.

Based on the series of popular children's books by Deborah Gregory, the first film starred actresses of various racial backgrounds as teens dreaming of musical stardom but never willing to compromise their "one for all, all for one" spirit.

John Rogers, The Associated Press

7 p.m. Friday, Disney Channel. 90 mins.