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00:01The following programme contains strong language.
00:11Hello!
00:13No, far away, far away now.
00:16Stephen Gagey once lived in a far away street.
00:19Hi Melinda, hello.
00:22Are you laughing at me?
00:24We were the most unlikely bunch to succeed.
00:28We weren't perfect, we weren't polished.
00:31Shane! How are you?
00:33We were a bunch of kids, put together.
00:36Pushed out on a world stage.
00:39Don't know where Mikey is.
00:41Told to look like superstars.
00:44Perhaps that was part of our charm.
00:57And the winner is...
01:08MyZone!
01:18Look at that one.
01:20Turn that way, look at that one.
01:21Look at that one.
01:27Here we are, friends. Come on.
01:29There was a massive argument in the dressing room.
01:32And I lost the plot.
01:34The band imploded.
01:36I was ready to get the fuck out of there.
01:38It was a lonely time.
01:40Standing on a stage in front of 100,000 people.
01:43Fucking lonely.
01:45It was absolutely scandalous and horrendous,
01:49what the newspaper did to Stephen.
01:52The famous Louis Watson.
01:53Louis hurt me.
01:55He knew how to hurt me.
01:57Vicious, bitchy, horrible things.
02:00I think he was afraid that the monster might become bigger than the creator.
02:04As it became bigger, so did their egos.
02:08They believed their own publicity.
02:10They forgot I wrote it.
02:13Good evening, Manchester!
02:18The Boys' Own singer, Stephen Gately, has died.
02:21He was 33.
02:26It's very hard.
02:35We loved each other, the five of us.
02:38But you never truly allow people to see all of you and who you are.
02:44I don't think I've processed everything that's happened in my life.
02:48I don't know how much they do know about me and my struggles.
02:54After 30 years, I think now's the time to talk about it and close this chapter in our lives.
02:59I don't know what happened.
03:00Oh, here we go.
03:26Okay, so I want you to sort of take me back, early 90s.
03:36Look, I'm back on it.
03:39And the 90s were a fucking blur.
03:42What is love?
03:44Baby, don't hurt me.
03:46Three, two, one, go!
03:56What is love?
04:02Another fantastic year to take back.
04:05They've swept the smash hits,
04:07following his party board completely clean.
04:11In 1993, I was 16 years of age.
04:18I was at school.
04:20We're a working class family in Dublin.
04:22Didn't have a lot of money.
04:24There was a story in the paper.
04:26They're holding auditions for the Irish answer to take that.
04:30This was right up my street.
04:32I love to sing, love to perform.
04:36It was happening that evening around the corner,
04:39and I remember just seeing these big lines of guys
04:41all down the stairs, outside, out onto the street,
04:45about 300 lads.
04:47I remember walking in and walking up the stairs
04:49and looking at these guys thinking,
04:51wow, they look like pop stars.
04:54I just remember thinking, I'm never going to get in.
05:21I clearly remember that, a million percent.
05:23But I got noticed by Louis Walsh.
05:33I'm just waking up properly.
05:37That's fine.
05:42I prefer ordinary people,
05:44because they work harder,
05:46and they do whatever you wanted to start.
05:48I wanted to do, like, an Irish version of, say,
05:52that.
05:53I was looking for boys with personality, and talent, and fun,
05:59and Irish charm.
06:01I wanted that.
06:02It was all about, what are girls going to like?
06:05I had met Shane before. Shane had a great look, and even if he wasn't a great singer, I was going to work with him.
06:15I would have been 17 years old.
06:25I worked for my dad as a car mechanic, working underneath cars.
06:27Fucking rain running down the back of your neck.
06:29Louis Walsh.
06:30Louis Walsh promised us the sun, moon and stars from the beginning.
06:35He goes, lads, I'm going to make this happen, and you're going to be big pop stars around the world.
06:41And we went, okay, and believe them.
06:44They were so keen.
06:45They so wanted something different in their lives.
06:48They were doing nothing.
06:49And this was a chance of something great.
06:52Oh, can't you see it, baby?
06:56You've got me going crazy.
07:00I do remember Stephen Gately.
07:03Steele.
07:04Steele just had this charisma that was crazy.
07:07And he knew how to be a pop star.
07:10He had, he just had it.
07:11He had that thing.
07:13I was still at school, doing my final exams.
07:17But I love singing.
07:19I go around all day, every day singing, singing, singing, singing.
07:23I always knew that I wanted to be successful in the entertainment business, no matter what.
07:33All of us had to sing.
07:35And then they stopped playing the keyboards and they wanted to see us dancing.
07:40They put on various songs and called different names and we'd have to jump up and dance around the room.
07:51So, of course, what did I do was pull my clothes off.
07:55Rightly or wrongly, that's what I did.
07:57And I kind of danced and probably gyrated.
08:01I was 19 at the time.
08:04Dropped out of college.
08:05I was living in an apartment.
08:08It was more of a squat.
08:10I'm going to be brutally honest and say, I definitely think, you know, I was put into the band because of how I looked at the time.
08:17I don't think I was taken on because of my voice.
08:21Well, they had to look good.
08:23It wasn't just all about the vocals.
08:25They had to look good.
08:26You had to get girls' attention.
08:28Show me your sir legs.
08:29Roland.
08:30Peter.
08:31He is in.
08:32Shane.
08:33Peter.
08:34Peter.
08:35Peter.
08:36Louis picked six.
08:37Stephen.
08:38Shane.
08:39Keith.
08:41Myself.
08:42And then two other lads.
08:45Richard and Mark.
08:46And that was boys' own.
08:48was boys on we were all young 16 17 18 year old boys nobody prepares a teenager for the for the
08:59world that they're about to live in nobody prepares them for the pressure cooker that
09:03they're about to kind of jump into okay well who is who now you identify yourself i'm ronan keating
09:08ronan keating where are you from i'm from swords from swords okay and who are you i'm mark walton
09:12mark walton from reene reene keith duffy reene reene shane lynch reene richard rock
09:18reminds stephen gaitley seventh place the next day we get a call to say we're going on the late
09:25late show tonight which in ireland is the biggest it's the biggest tv show in the country i was told
09:31you don't play any instruments at all none of you i was also told that you don't sing at all none of
09:37you and louis waltz said you're going to perform on the late late show live
09:42and we said perform what we haven't learned anything we don't know each other that well
09:47you know perform what doesn't matter we'll make it up we just need to get you on tv
09:51we need to get you in the papers and we need to get you on tv so we didn't sing anything we just
09:55danced to a piece of music um and it was yeah it was pretty it was it was a moment all right okay cue the
10:02music
10:16oh god it hurts now today 30 years later it still hurts
10:30but we were loving it we didn't care we didn't give a shout we loved it
10:41i don't think there's any love hate relationship with that video
10:44whatsoever i hate it i hate it so much but how i felt at the time was great because i'm on the telly
10:54doing a little dance i'm in a band knowing the journey had begun
11:03after the late late we thought we were pop stars
11:07after some photo shoots we did louis waltz wasn't happy visually wasn't happy with how we were looking
11:14and those other two guys mark walton and richard rock he just decided that they didn't fit in the
11:23group he decided that they didn't gel and the two of them were out i thought holy
11:29shit like if louis could get rid of two members of the man he'd get rid of any one of us at any
11:33moment so you've got to work harder ten times harder than anybody else to keep your position in the band
11:38i had to let them know that they could all be replaced at any time i had to make sure they
11:48were hungry and they were ambitious and they didn't take anything for granted i was like that from day one
11:57they were all insecure because they didn't know whether they were going to make it or not
12:02they just had ambition that was the one thing they all had they all had great dreams and great
12:09ambitions as did i i knew five was the perfect number if somebody leaves you still have four
12:19left so you're okay so five was the perfect number and we got michael grayman
12:23well mick joined the band he came in the other two have left and this is the guy he's number five
12:33he was very talented very openly talented he could write songs and he he could sing and he
12:40could play and he could he could do all that so he was an immediate talent yes for sure
12:46he had a really cool look you know i just thought oh he's cool man and
12:49mick always had a guitar on his back and a foil full of songs under his arm and that was kind of his
12:54thing i've not spoke to mick for four years
13:04i think there's an element of industry that that damaged him
13:10if i'm being honest i think mike mikey was a little bit lost in a boy band
13:14mikey himself is quite the recluse okay that's it cool one take two
13:31i just want to give my own honest account of my experience in the band and that is
13:42very very different from the other guys
13:56in the very early days everything was brand new to us and we had our whole future ahead of us
14:03and nobody had yet been tainted by any of the negative aspects of fame
14:12we spent 1994 traveling around ireland in a white transit van top to bottom north south east west
14:24we traveled everywhere
14:28we had song crack we had song crack in the back of that transit van it was a perfect fit it just felt
14:33like i had a family around me the boys were family it was great
14:50we were traveling around ireland and playing venues that weren't venues you know tables that were taped
14:55together in a nightclub we mimed two backing tracks we only had two live microphones and what we would
15:07do is we had three dummy microphones we choreographed movements so that we could turn and our backs would
15:13be to the audience and we could swap mics so that everybody got a chance to talk live between songs and
15:18do their link the girls all loved us the girls rushed up to the front but guys hated us they'd show ice
15:28cubes at us and throw coins at us and they'd um they'd boo us there was loads of points where i thought oh
15:35i'm wasting my time this is not going to make any money are not going to be successful for anybody and i
15:42had a lot of sleepless nights but i knew they had something and i thought let's make the record to
15:51get them noticed get them attention and we borrowed the money it was 10 000 quid and we recorded the song
16:01i get a call from louis saying that myself stephen and ronan were being sent over to record the first
16:11boy's own song the three of us were sent over to london they obviously kind of knew from the
16:19from the auditions that do the lads had stronger singing voices than shane and i and for that reason
16:25there was no need for the additional expense of two more flights and two more hotel rooms and whatever
16:31we just felt absolutely robbed we felt that's not fair there wasn't a lot of money for flights so i
16:37just brought the best singers with me our parents paid for the flights for shane and i to join the
16:42other three lads my parents certainly didn't have a lot of money so they would have had to scrimp and
16:47scrape to to get the money together for my flight but they did right lads let me explain what's going
16:51to happen all of you one at a time are going to start out listening to what's on tape and copying it
16:57i've done this for a few years i know what i'm talking about we went to meet this guy called ian
17:01levine who was the big pop producer at the time he produced bad boys inc and early take that so this
17:08was a big deal for boys on to get in the room and we recorded um the detroit spinner song work on my way
17:15back to you one by one he put us in studio to record the lead vocal on the track and we were testing
17:26vocals and stephen sang and mikey sang and then ian levine says to louie the blonde get rid of the
17:32blonde one he can't sing and i guess i didn't cut the mustard i wasn't good enough mikey and stephen were
17:41immediately good enough um
17:46you know that i i found it very hard i was 16 years of age
17:51that could have broken me that was a very very tough thing to go through to be told that the
17:57get rid of the blonde when he can't sing so we recorded the song myself stephen doing the lead
18:05vocals it felt good it felt positive i get into the band because i love to do music to write music
18:15so i felt that the future seems kind of brighter if it means that i can progress
18:23as a singer in this band onto bigger and better things
18:35there are a bunch of lads from north dublin who are being promoted as ireland's answer to take that
18:41would you please welcome boys on
18:48working my way back to you was only for irish release and i don't think we had an official
18:54record deal at that time i think we had a one song deal in ireland
18:58i used to love to make you cry it made me feel like a man inside
19:04we did all the work over here all the television work radio work everything everything non-stop
19:19working my way back to you went to number three i believe in the charts in ireland
19:23so we got quite successful in iran with a number three hit that signal to the uk that ireland had a band
19:31that were worth checking out polydore records they came over to ireland and they offered us a global deal
19:42so this was our big break this is our really big break
19:45it was a big moment for the band the record company said send your best singers let's make
19:52the best record name age and where you're from okay my name is mikey graham i had to pick who i
19:57wanted to be at the lead singers michael there was part of me that made me believe that i maybe
20:03wasn't as good as i thought i was and that maybe i didn't have a position in the band or a place in the
20:09band and i'm ronan keating from swords i'm 17. ronan he was passionate he was he was driven
20:17was he competitive yes hugely competitive he would do whatever he needed to do to win to get what he
20:26wanted i was a sprinter 10 11 12 13 14 and i won the irish title i took a bit of that with me
20:37when i went into the band i was trying to impress louis because he was the manager he had already
20:42gotten rid of two members in the band i had to impress louis so i was attentive i was professional
20:50tried to always make myself look like a pop star ronan was always trying to prove himself as a singer
20:57as an artist as an all-rounder he always wanted to be the front man in the band and good for him
21:04that's what made him into ronan he had ambition yeah i don't think people realize how much work it
21:09is it's non-stop all the time it's dead easy don't worry we have a great time look at this guy here
21:15say hello to the counter this is louis walsh yes the famous louis walsh that you hear so much about
21:21i decided ronan and steven were the lead singers i knew steven and ronan had something special
21:29and i knew girls liked them and i knew they wanted it so badly
21:34i couldn't take a chance i had to make the best record with the best singers that was it
21:41there was no favoritism as such without any word to anybody ronan was taking the lead role
21:54i was upset about it at the time i tried to convey that but it fell upon dead ears
22:01they said they all wanted to be lead singer ronan and steven were and that was it end of story
22:10steven and i went in did the vocals on that first big single in the uk couldn't wait for
22:16me mom to hear it that's what i was that's what i was most excited about oh wow i've i made that
22:23you know that kind of feeling that i made that smile
22:31britain's number two is that old osmund's classic love me for a reason they're here
22:34they're live on stage with their biggest fan boys
22:54and then love me for a reason goes number two in the charts at christmas time
22:57i never had to look back after that because once that single was a hit i was seen as a singer in
23:02the band i established myself as a singer boyzone was never going to change after that and i think
23:08we all felt that we all knew we were we had a place in the band
23:24that was the beginning of a hard struggle for me through the years
23:28my confidence that i had beforehand about music fell to the floor
23:43and it was a bit heartbreaking i'll be honest with you when you see an audience full of posters you
23:49know for steven and ronan and shane and keith and then you might see the odd one but mikey you know
23:56you know what's going on remember i was 21 as a kid that was tough and louis went from one day
24:06speaking with me to never speaking to me for seven years and i never knew why i had absolutely no idea
24:14why i just thought he didn't like me i probably ignored him a little bit not realizing but it's because
24:23the others were so full-on i thought he was happy being michael and being the quiet one at the back
24:37i was kind of struggling with wanting to contribute more musically so the record company sent me away
24:46on my own i was walking in this other studio and really hoping that what i came up with would be
24:54considered brought my stuff back to the record company and they already had the album done
25:00in london and i wasn't on the album at all don't even think i sang on it that hurt that hurt
25:08in that loss of ambition high spiritedness vitality when that left me a lot of things left me my interest
25:24in my own appearance um and i didn't drink until i turned about 24 ish and i was introduced to jack
25:36italian's and coca-cola and that became the thing that kind of got me through the next few years of
25:43the sadness and the disenchantment i was very frustrated angry depressed because of all of that i
25:55would withdraw from the band the truth is i don't know how bad it got because i didn't talk to him
26:06the truth is i didn't recognize any of his struggles i know mick suffered from
26:13sleep he was an insomniac um and i think part of that was pressure part of that was mental struggle
26:20part of that was you know frustration but i don't know how bad it was because we didn't talk
26:26i also had a young daughter so i had that responsibility financially to make sure that
26:36she and her mother were taken care of but to be honest if it wasn't for the responsibilities i had
26:45in life like my daughter you know i would have walked and i nearly did a couple of times to like
26:52kind of calm down and realize the financial impact it would have on my family so i stayed around
27:00i think there was still a lot of issues and maybe i'm to blame for that maybe i i should have paid
27:14more attention and maybe reached out to people that i felt were struggling but i was very hungry and i
27:22wanted to be great and i wanted to have my opportunities and it created resentment and if
27:28there's a resentment all sorts of demons can appear
27:37hi welcome back the boys are here boys from dublin hi nice to see you have a quick name check left to
27:41right i'm shane i'm mikey keith brown and steve well welcome thank you how long have you been together
27:46for just over a year now yeah after love me for a reason we got a big agent got a big promoter in
27:52the uk everything changed for them the star prize is these three boys on hats we were on all the uk tv
28:01shows pepsi chart show top of the pops and going live boys on was on everything hi we're boys on
28:08this is our new single key to my life
28:15our first album was number one we had made it at that point that was just wow us five lads from dublin
28:25got this far it went crazy for boys on just traveling constantly airports airplanes vehicle
28:37tv studio radio station hi i'm keith and i'm ronan and we're from boys zone and you're watching
28:44johnny's hit parade hi i'm keith and i'm brown and so what if you just do it on your own it's
28:49wadi crap thailand you're watching smile tv you're watching channel v space shower tv mtv japan pop 10 tvk
28:57shuffle you're watching street they would literally work you from early in the morning like live radio show
29:03five or six in the morning to live tv show at 11 o'clock at night you're just so tired when you're
29:14finished working you can't sleep we're away we're in a hotel in germany we go to the bar you know we get
29:20drunk you go to bed you wake up you've got a hangover and you do it all over again
29:24louie never traveled with us you know the odd time if it was something big if you're playing
29:34wembley but on the day-to-day slogging away louie hated to travel oh i'm in dublin i hardly i didn't
29:41want to go with them oh god no i don't think they knew what i actually did i don't think they knew
29:49the work that actually i did behind the scenes at all they've no idea i think they just thought i
29:54made phone calls and it all happened but it wasn't just like that really
30:03i don't think boys don't probably realized how instrumental he was
30:07to their success there was take that who were cleaning up and then there was boy zone
30:15who needed to do something fast to get people's attention next to this massive boy band
30:21and louie knew exactly what to do and exactly how to do it and that was through the tabway press
30:29i was working as the irish mirror showbiz editor my job essentially was to go get the biggest stories
30:35about the biggest stars every day you're challenged with beating every other newspaper
30:41and there were no rules there were no rules the only rule was you had to win so for me
30:47it was made very clear um when i when i got into the mirror that the sun were beating us this is
30:56one of the first conversations i had with my boss the sun are beating us every day on boy zone
31:01i didn't give a fuck a year ago he said because they were putting out a load of old tat around
31:06islands now london are getting obsessed with them and i need you to become their best mate
31:14i remember sitting down and being told to call this guy called louie walsh
31:24so i rang him and surprisingly he didn't just slam down the phone and say put in an interview request
31:30like everybody else he said give me call back in two days and i'll have a story for you
31:35i always had a really good relationship with all the people in the press and the tablas were very
31:40important and so you know i i kept them on side i gave them stories i told them things
31:46louie walsh to me is the master and in 20 years of journalism is the master puppeteer of the press i mean
31:55you can't underestimate how he rewrote the rule book about engagement with the press and why you
32:02should do that he was access all areas he and he did play games he was shrewd he knew what the press
32:11needed if there wasn't a story going around louie would get you one and it didn't matter what you
32:18wrote as long as you wrote i didn't realize how much we were in the tabloids like twice a week for
32:26five years we were written about and we were out of the country so much that you know we'd speak to
32:33our mums or dads and they say oh i just read this in the paper is it true and we're like no it's not
32:39true who said that and you'd never know who said it oh yeah i mean sometimes the boys would read
32:47stories in the papers about themselves that weren't true and if they who told them that we no i did i
32:55told them because i am promoting you i make them up sometimes but that's fine
33:00he believed any story was a good story any story he would make up stories constantly about the band
33:10about relationships with girlfriends that were non-existent like plane crashes that were not true
33:20i had them in a plane crash once in australia and i forgot to tell the families i made it up but there
33:25was no plane crash but um it got a good story did you ever feel guilty about it i never felt guilty
33:31about it no way i was promoting them i was doing my job i would do it all again yeah absolutely i'd do
33:38even more now
33:45the invasion of the tabloids was damaging it scared us i mean it was hugely scary
33:52what the media did to you to us all having no control people making assumptions on who you are
33:59from what they read in the papers the five of us were massively affected by that
34:05we all had our fair share of stories in the paper that affect us in different ways
34:10the one who really had it the most was stephen gately i'd say
34:15it's mine it's mine it's mine it's mine it's mine deborah deborah take the picture
34:25at the time stephen gately was very much a dream ticket for the tabloids
34:33because every girl in the country was mad in love with him
34:35and louis handed me a dream story an almost inconceivably fantastical showbiz home run he said
34:47okay i'm giving this only to you
34:52stephen gately and baby spice are secretly dating
34:55and this time the spice girls are zigzagarring around the world i mean people were obsessed with
35:09them on a global level and stephen gately was single all the time so you don't take a step back
35:22to wonder if it could be true or if it's being exaggerated you don't care it's a home run they
35:26said it print print print and it did it i mean it went everywhere
35:31stephen he was living the dream but he had a big secret he didn't want anyone to know about it
35:44he was so scared he was so scared that it was going to kill his career
36:01the 96 was a very very special year i was 20 years of age we're playing wembley
36:17it doesn't feel real you're still waiting for somebody to tell you you're an imposter what
36:21are you doing you shouldn't be doing this it was an absolute honor to perform for the fans
36:29there is nothing i can say to you that could describe the feeling of elation
36:41we went from strength to strength that we didn't dip we kept on building on what boys on world was
36:49it was huge you could do no wrong high chart positions sellout tours record-breaking ticket sales
36:58it was so much fun so great my nickname is homeboy because i'm always homesick
37:04i was born on saint patrick's day and i used to be a dance teacher who am i so girls who is that
37:09homesick chappie steve from boyzone is here
37:15steven he was actually from day one probably the most popular member of the band for girls he was the
37:22heartthrob not ronan steven galey was the heartthrob
37:31you know we were very close we had a great bond from from very young
37:36pretty early on uh we had fans um in in the garden of our house like you know the they'd be parked
37:45outside they'd be sleeping there and my mother be making them cups of tea he probably wouldn't come
37:50back for days and they'd be still sitting outside waiting for him you know sorry girls i'm actually
37:55walking you'll have to wait later on or something
37:57where's your camera
38:08he was the childhood sweetheart of millions of girls they loved him
38:18that's why we had to just rush and rush because if you stay there too long you will not get out
38:24and he had to negotiate his way through that you could tell that it had taken a bit of a toll on him
38:30and we didn't know why at that time we didn't know why i certainly didn't
38:37steven i think i think it was he was probably about to go on go on a tour and he just said there's
38:44something i need to talk to you about you know i said yeah okay you know and i said well let's go
38:50for a coffee he just said that yeah i'm gay he hadn't said anything to anyone in my family
38:57you know and you know until he told me
39:02i knew the minute i met him that he was on the bus the same bus as me
39:11and there was something about the shared experience pretty soon he gravitated towards me and started
39:21to tell me stuff and i worried for him there was a huge sense of vulnerability
39:29and i knew where he was from in dublin so i knew it could never have been easy for him
39:38behind the dublin financial center one of the capital's symbols of power progress and wealth
39:43hides sheriff street symbol of poverty dilapidation and urban decay
39:47we grew up in a place called sheriff street tough tough area grown up like i had four brothers me and
39:56the boys had one bedroom myself and stephen shared a bed he was down one end i was up the other
40:03you know it was hard for people sheriff street was a very very rough and humble place
40:13and quite unforgiving and there would have been a dominance of criminality
40:21to try and break out of that was going to be a big deal because just saying you were from sheriff street
40:28would have been a black mark against you going for a job going for anything
40:32i was just determined to be famous since i was around nine there's no one down my area that has made it
40:40i'm going to be the first to be well known throughout the world
40:42i was suspicious that he was gay from day one
41:12but um i knew he didn't want anyone to know about it
41:17stephen knew that keeping stum on his real nature was part of his ticket out
41:27we knew stephen was gay stephen came to us you know early doors of the band and he said it to us
41:33we were there for him you know as big brothers and protect him and look after him
41:37he was obviously concerned about the reaction that the fans would have to him being gay you mean
41:43you're talking 25 years ago it was a different world back then the catholic church had held a firm
41:51grip on irish society ireland was completely unwelcoming to gays teachers bank officials anybody
42:01like that who was outed had to leave the country they were disgraced in 1993 homosexuality was
42:10decriminalized in ireland but stephen hadn't yet learned to accept that it was okay to be gay
42:17because nobody had it had literally just been decriminalized so you know the country was
42:23only catching up with the rest of the world and uh stephen was caught in the crossfire will you
42:32welcome please boys own stephen gaker
42:38i think stephen's biggest fear was rejection so what's all this stuff about kerrie ann i don't
42:44know where i sprang from did you know her yeah i know her well yeah she's a really nice girl you
42:49know she's done well and we've known each other over the past few years but there's no romance
42:52there no there's no romance what about mandy smith we had her on the show yeah he was trying
42:58to straddle both worlds and keep everybody happy do you think there's all this pressure coming on
43:03you because all the other lads that the forums are spoken for see i got i get asked this all the time
43:07i mean every interview we do with every magazine they always ask you know you're the only one left what's
43:12the story when i find the right person and when i settle down then you know i'll be happy and i'll let
43:17people know but at the moment i'm just so his struggle was eating him alive from the moment
43:22stephen got up in the morning until he went to bed at night he was overwhelmingly afraid that he was
43:30going to be exposed how do you cope with the success of the kind of media attention it is quite difficult
43:37for me i do find it hard to cope at times and i just like to shut myself in in in my room
43:43i'm sensitive and i can get very upset easily but um you know i had four great friends look after me
43:54stephen was incredibly fragile he's a fragile person and it wouldn't take much to push him
44:00there was many a time when he would lock himself in a hotel room and we couldn't get him out
44:05he was always on his phone and you'd never know who he was on the phone to he was always stressed out
44:09he was he he had a lot of anxiety going on in his life it was um a lonely lonely place
44:16he was scared of the press doing the story on he was so scared louie did tell me that some of the
44:24papers were trying to out stephen one of our team who had a serious contact in the sun had
44:34basically given us their daily summary of espionage and it was that the sun
44:43are running a front page world exclusive tomorrow that stephen gately is coming out
44:50we're in the dressing room we're in the dressing room in the coliseum in hong kong
45:04i was a sherry editor at the sun somebody came to the sun was selling the story that um that stephen was
45:14was gay i wrote the story what we were about to do was going to change everything
45:33so
45:44so
45:48so
45:50so
45:54so
45:56Transcription by CastingWords