'I'm
Gay And In A Boy Band!' -
November 2006
Article
shortened and only includes the parts about Mark, Kevin and
V.
When
agonised Boyzone star Stephen Gately finally revealed the secret of his sexuality, his
fans didn't even blink. Others have followed his lead - but for some it's still
a step too far.
Craig
McLean
In
spring and summer 2004 I spent three months, on and off, in the company of a new
boy band called V. I was writing the story of their launch, which was being
masterminded by Prestige, the management company that ripped up the boy band
rulebook by inventing Busted and McFly: boy bands with
guitars! But V would be a more traditional combo - five lads, dancing and
harmonising and smiling and winking.
In
the run-up to their launch, the V lads had been put up in a des res apartment complex in north
They
all unblinkingly denied the last one. One year later, after the band had split,
one of their number, Kevin McDaid, popped up in the
papers as Mark from Westlife's boyfriend. Then in
August this year, a second member, Aaron Buckingham, contributed a piece to
Attitude.
'No
one ever made me keep my sexuality a secret,' he wrote. But a friend had
recently been expelled from the line-up of a new band 'being put together by a
major record label' after admitting he was gay. His manager told him: 'We're
sorry but we don't want any gay guys in this band.' Buckingham reported that
'[her] suspicions were apparently raised while seeing him dance in what she
described as a "camp manner". It's disgusting behaviour like this which made me
determined to keep my sexuality a secret ... As it turned out, two future Gatelys managed to slip through the V audition
net.'
I
ask Kevin McDaid why he lied to me about his
sexuality. 'It was a difficult situation,' he says. 'I was in my comfort zone,
in my bedroom, but that was the first time I'd been asked that.' In discussions
with management and the label he had been given the choice of coming out or not.
'I felt a lot of pressure. People were saying that it wasn't a problem, but they
probably would prefer me to not say anything.'
He
took the advice of 'professionals' whom he felt knew more than he did about the
situation. He was told that 'it might affect the band's success'. Plus, it was a
personal matter.
Buckingham,
who confided in McDaid that he was gay towards the end
of the band's existence one year later, wrote that V were given 'a strict set of rules to abide by. I remember one
of those clearly being "no visits to gay clubs".' McDaid ignored this rule. 'One of the managers would say,
"You were seen at some gay club last night", and that was a
problem.'
With
V, a new band starting out on pop's perilous foothills, all the boxes had to be
ticked, every opportunity maximised. These were enlightened times ... But why
confuse the issue by having a gay member - two gay members - in a brand new boy
band, explicitly targeted at young girls?
It
was different when Mark Feehily came out. Westlife were already established and
he and McDaid had been an item for over a year. 'It
was stressful, but not over the top,' says McDaid of
that period. But Feehily needed to come clean. 'I was there to hold his hand and
stand by him,' says McDaid, now a photographer who
shares a
Even
so, Feehily declined to be interviewed for this story. From a professional point
of view this is perhaps understandable: this month, Westlife release The Love
Album. And for McDaid and Feehily, the first
known/well-known boy band couple, it wasn't all sunshine and roses, literally.
After they came out, 'I was waiting for the flowers from Elton and George and
they just didn't arrive!' laughs McDaid. 'Maybe we're
just not worth it, darling. Or it was so old news.'
Credit/Source:
The
Observer