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Westlife Uncovered
News of the World November 3rd 2000
WESTLIFE are heading for a sensational SEVENTH No1 in a row on Sunday with their new single My Love.
Now the five Irish lads – Kian Egan, Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, Bryan McFadden and Nicky Byrne – have dropped their guard - and their trousers - to reveal their thoughts on fame, money, love and being in the mega band.
Bryan in breakdown
as tour takes toll
BRYAN McFADDEN was alone in a stark American hotel room. He lay crumpled on the bed and in the depths of despair.
It was 5am and Westlife’s punishing schedule had become too much for him. Moments later he flipped. Ripping open the mini-bar door, he took out ten miniature bottles of spirits and knocked them back, one by one.
Dubliner Bryan says: “It happened when we were in America this summer. It became a nightmare and that took its toll on me.
“We were up at five or six every morning for two-and-a-half months and it got to me and I physically couldn’t take it.
“We were so tired that our work started to suffer.
“Once we flew in on an economy flight from Taiwan to Toronto. We then had a five-hour wait before flying to Detroit, where we were meant to connect to Ohio.
“The flight was cancelled and all the hotels were booked so we had to stay in a motel 20 miles away. We got there at 4am and it was disgusting.
“Two hours’ sleep, and then to New York and then Gatwick. I’d had two hours’ sleep in four days.
“The time I flipped was when we worked for 24 hours on our Against All Odds single on the island of Capri. At 7am we got a ferry and flew to New York before doing a midnight show.
“When I came off stage later I just collapsed.
“I was shaking in bed at 5am the next day and pulled open the mini-bar, ripping out all the bottles. I drank ten little bottles of vodka, scotch and gin, one after the other. I told the others, ‘I have to go home.’”
A physical wreck, Bryan later told the rest of the band his Westlife dream was in tatters and that he couldn’t go on, worn down by constant early mornings and endless TV shows.
He tells me he was dead on his feet and that his sanity was only saved by the love and support of his blonde girlfriend Kerry Katona, 19, from girl band Atomic Kitten.
It is 10am and Bryan, 20, looks sprightly now, casually dressed in a red Gap hooded top and jeans.
He has been dating Kerry for a year and says: “We speak to each other on the phone more than 30 times a day wherever we are in the world.
“She is the first girl I’ve loved — my first proper girlfriend. This is the real thing and I can never see us splitting up.
“We are totally devoted to each other but we are definitely NOT the new Posh and Becks.
“I can’t get enough of Kerry. We aren’t engaged, although we have talked about marriage.
“I wear a friendship ring on my engagement finger but we wouldn’t have time to get married, unless our record company gave me a day off.
“We haven’t had any problems with fans — I think Kerry has had one nasty letter. I know Billie Piper and Ritchie from Five have had a few problems but I hope people understand that we are just in love.
“It would be unnatural for us to hide our relationship because we are so mad about each other and I hope people realise that.
“Kerry has helped me through some extremely hard times when I’ve despaired.”
He adds: “I really miss Dublin — I was there the other day and it was the first time I’d been in my bed for four months. That is hard.”
Bryan and band mates Mark Feehily, Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan and Kian Egan are about to notch up their seventh No1 single with My Love, yet just 18 months ago they were unknowns, written off as another cynical exercise in boy band marketing.
But they have proved they are a cut above the rest, with good looks, catchy songs, hard work and maybe a bit of the luck of the Irish.
Despite the pressures and the moments of despair, Bryan says: “I’ve never felt like leaving the band — it’s just like we’re running with a Lottery ticket in our hands and we don’t want to stop.”
article © News of the World