Gareth Gates has revealed that his partner, fellow singer and actor Allana Taylor, had to step in after he was cruelly taunted by a group of women while on tour.
The pop singer, who has a stammer, appeared on Loose Women on Monday (20 January) where he opened up about the incident.
“Unfortunately on the ships we had an incident, there was some women next door to our cabin – they learnt I was in that cabin, and every time I went out on the balcony, they started to mock my speech by going ‘G-G-G Gareth Gates’ or singing the song ‘Cha-cha-cha-changes.”
He continued: “I’m very very used to that, I’ve had it my whole life. But my other half, after two or three days of this, it got too much and so she went around.
“[Taylor] knocked on the door and said, ‘Please can you stop doing this…’ It was grown women doing it.”
Gates remarked that “we all have banter among my friends – I take the mickey out of myself, my speech, but in a closed group”.
“I think knowing the person you’re mocking is able to hear takes a different [kind of] person,” he said.
“Thankfully [Taylor] was my knight in shining armour and they stopped.”
Gates’s story received a round of applause from the audience, as panellist Mariella Frostrup pointed out that he’d experienced “adult bullying”.
“I was badly bullied [as a child], often because of my speech,” Gates told her. “In a weird way I’m thankful for that. It’s made me extremely resilient – I can take a lot now because of that.
“I certainly wouldn’t have won SAS without that.”
Gates has been a vocal campaigner against bullying during his career, as well as raising awareness of the struggles those with stammers face.
The musician and actor competed and won the 2023 edition of the reality TV show Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, beating MP Matt Hancock and model Danielle Lloyd in the final.
Speaking about the experience, Gates said: “When [chief instructor Billy Billingham] said, ‘There’s only one person we’d actually stand shoulder to shoulder with. And that’s you number seven.’ That was a really amazing feeling.
“I think winning, or passing, was amazing but being the only one really meant a lot to me. Realising that this is real for these DS, was really eye opening. We’re just here creating a TV show but this is what they’ve had to do for real. I just had huge respect for them, that they have to go through this for real whilst protecting our country.”
He first rose to fame after coming second to Will Young in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol in 2002 and has gone on to release a string of albums and perform in musical theatre.
His new show, Gareth Gates Sings Love Songs From the Movies, opens in February and runs until early April in the UK.
