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Oh, brother. From Cain and Abel to Prince Harry and Prince William, the annals of history are filled with fraternal rivalries. But has there ever been a sibling spat quite as bitter – and as public – as that between Noel and Liam Gallagher?
This week, the sibling frontmen of the hit Mancunian rock group Oasis announced that they were reforming the band for a much-hyped UK stadium tour, after 15 years of estrangement.
When the “Wonderwall” hitmakers disbanded in 2009, Noel and Liam’s once-brotherly relationship became arid and inhospitable: no Oasis, just desert.
In the years since, fans have consistently speculated about a reunion, though the Gallaghers’ frosty relationship has long made the prospect unlikely.
Now, it seems as though the famously loggerheaded duo have patched things up – at least enough to share a stage once again.
Here’s the story of the Gallaghers’ turbulent relationship – from early sibling spats to the eventual reconciliation.
The backstory
According to Liam, the Gallagher brothers’ animosity has its roots in their teenage years, when the two shared one bedroom in their parent’s home. (The third, eldest Gallagher brother, Paul, had his own separate room.)
In the Oasis documentary Supersonic, Liam describes a time when he came home drunk, and urinated on his brother’s stereo. “I think that’s where the grudge started,” he said.
After forming the band, disputes between the brothers continued to escalate. Oasis were playing in LA in 1994 following the release of breakthrough record Definitely Maybe when things first came to a head: Liam changed the lyrics to “Live Forever”, and is claimed to have insulted the audience and attacked his brother with a tambourine while high on methamphetamine.
The incident, later referenced in the album track “Talk Tonight”, prompted Noel to go missing from the tour, and supposedly considered quitting the band. He later played down the incident, saying: “Me and Liam had a disagreement, probably about what shoes he was wearing, so I’d f***ed off to Las Vegas”.
In August 1996, following further clashes during the recording of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, Liam bailed on an Oasis gig at the Royal Festival Hall, citing illness. He did, however, heckle the band from the balcony, and was barred by his brother from joining in on the performance ad hoc.
An argument in Barcelona in the year 2000 devolved into a full-on physical brawl between the brothers, reportedly prompted by comments Liam made about Noel’s daughter. Noel quit the band, but again rejoined. “I’ve never forgiven him,” he said in 2005. “He’s my brother, but he’s at arm’s length until he apologises for what he’s done.”
The relationship between Gallaghers remained turbulent, with further quarrels, altercations and stormings-offstage. By 2009, tensions had reached fever pitch, with each sibling voicing open contempt for the other in interviews. “I don’t like Liam,” Noel said. “He’s rude, arrogant, intimidating, and lazy.”
Finally, in 2009, at a gig at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris, Oasis came to a resolute end. Noel issued a statement explaining his reasons for quitting the band, citing his brother’s “verbal and violent intimidation towards me, my family and friends… of too great a number to list”.
“People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer,” he wrote. Later, would claim that an argument over the advertising of Liam’s Pretty Green merchandising line had devolved into Liam throwing fruit and swinging a guitar around “like an axe… he nearly took my face off with it.” It was at this point that he decided to quit.
The rest of Oasis’s lineup, including Liam, continued to perform under the name Beady Eye until 2014.
The estrangement
For a while, many fans thought that the breakup would be short-lived: this wasn’t the first time Noel had walked away, after all. But for the Noel, at least, it was out of the question.
“I don’t think anyone is pushing for a reunion,” he said in 2012. “Nobody ever brings it up in any seriousness; I mean Liam does publicly but he says a lot of things publicly. I wouldn’t take anything he says seriously.”
Further discord emerged over weddings. After Liam failed to invite Noel to either of his weddings, Noel in turn snubbed him when he tied the knot with Sara MacDonald in 2011 in a lavish ceremony, and declined to invite his brother.
“[Noel] goes on about how he wasn’t invited to my wedding. No one was at my wedding but Nic’s [ex-wife Nicole Appleton] mum and my mum. Get over it, mate. I’ve not been invited to his wedding,” Liam told the Chicago Sun Times.
The disparagement bled onto social media, with Liam especially becoming a vocal and irreverent poster on Twitter. (Among the insults hurled at his brother across the internet: “S***BAG”, “c**t”.)
Noel continued to condemn his brother’s behaviour during the Oasis years, saying in 2015 that he would “never forgive” Liam’s habit of abandoning gigs at the last minute. He also accused Liam of being “obsessed” with him, prompting Liam to reciprocate in kind.
In 2017, Liam released his first single as a solo artist, and further dismissed the idea of reforming the band. “[Working with Noel] bores the death out of me,” he said, revealing that the pair had not had any contact in years.
However, the interview – a Q&A with The Observer – did also hint at the mending of bridges, with Liam admitting: “I miss him and I miss the band and I miss the fans and I miss singing them songs.”
But things would get worse before they got better. When Liam performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert – an event in support of the victims of the terrorist bombing at Ariana Grande’s show in the city – and Noel did not, the Beady Eye star hit out at his brother on Twitter. Responding to his brother’s claim that he was a “sad f*****”, Noel replied in an interview: “Young Mancunians, young music fans, were slaughtered, and he, twice, takes it somewhere to be about him. He needs to see somebody.”
Escalating tensions
Amid England’s World Cup run in 2018, Liam asked his brother on Twitter to “get the big O back together and stop f***ing about.” After Noel failed to respond, he wrote, “I’ll take that as a NO then.”
This became a pattern in the following years: Liam publicly calling for a reunion, and Noel rebuffing them. Liam, for his part, was also exacerbating tensions, at one point branding Noel’s then-wife a “witch”.
“At the beginning I would have said to my management, there’s a magic number,” Noel told Mojo. “If it reaches that magic number I’ll do it. Give me a shout. [But] that thing about my kids and my wife. No way. If I had 50 quid left in my pocket I’d rather go busking. No way, I can’t do it.”
Towards the end of the 2010s, the feud between the two grew dirtier, as Noel’s wife Sara MacDonald and daughter Anais were increasingly dragged into the dispute. After MacDonald called Liam a “fat t*** doing his tribute act”, Liam sent a message to Noel’s daughter Anais, reading, “tell your step mam to be very careful.”
“So you’re sending threatening messages via my teenage daughter now are you? You were always good at intimidating women though eh?” Noel wrote, sharing a screenshot of the message.
Similar incidents followed, with the animosity between Liam and MacDonald a catalyst for public outbursts. Liam claimed that he had, at their mother’s behest, invited Noel to his 2019 wedding as an “olive branch”, but Noel denied this.
The road to reconciliation
Gradually, however, things de-escalated. Liam continued to call for a reunion, with Noel suggesting that nothing serious had been proposed. Noel’s separation with MacDonald in 2023 may have helped remove a source of conflict from the brothers’ relationship.
In 2023, Noel said that he was “open to a conversation” about reforming the band. “Liam won’t speak to me, he’s a coward,” he said. “So he should get some of his people, his agent, to call my people and say, ‘Look, this is what we’re thinking.’ And then we’ll have a conversation about it. Until then, he’s being a little bit disingenuous,” said the High Flying Birds frontman.
In February, Liam claimed that Noel had turned down an offered to reform Oasis, for a “big tour, a lot of money”. He suggested that Noel’s ongoing divorce may have been a factor in the decision.
Finally, during a set at Reading Festival 2024, Liam dropped a number of hints about a prospective reunion, dedicating the Oasis track “Half The World Away” to his brother. The gig ended by revealing a date and time, which was also shared by both Gallagher brothers on social media.
At 8am on Tuesday 27 August, both Liam and Noel announced that the band was reforming, stating: “This is it, this is happening.”
In the announcement, the duo confirmed that there had been “no great revelatory moment”, but rather “the gradual realisation that the time is right”.
Whether this is a lasting peace or simply a fragile armistice remains to be seen. But while the roads they had to walk were certainly winding, the Gallaghers are – for now at least – back in business.
