Ronan Keating has declared Boyzone were “five young lads thrown to the wolves”.
The singer, now 47, joined the boyband created by manager Louis Walsh in 1993, with the group becoming one of the most successful pop acts of their era, selling more than 25 million records and achieving six UK number-one singles.
But the performer has now reflected on the brutal reality beneath the surface of the group’s success in a new three-part Sky documentary titled ‘Boyzone: No Matter What’, which delves into the rivalries and struggles that defined the band’s meteoric rise and eventual split in 1999.
Ronan told The Guardian in a chat about the documentary: “We were five young lads, thrown to the wolves. “To cope with the pressures of fame, we ran on bravado and bottled everything up.”
“Thirty years on, it seemed important to take an honest look at what happened.
“There were times it was uncomfortable – painful, actually – to hear what the other lads had to say.”
Ronan, who rose from a working-class Dublin background, described himself as “desperate to succeed”.
He auditioned for Boyzone at 16, with minimal experience apart from karaoke and school performances.
Ronan added: “Louis Walsh had the golden ticket, and I wanted to grab it and hang onto it for dear life.”
Louis, now 70, emerges in the documentary as a polarising figure – with Ronan stating: “He showed us we were all disposable.”
Boyzone’s Stephen Gately, the group’s youngest member, came out as gay I 1999 when Ronan was aged 22, and he kicked off his solo career that same year away from his other bandmates Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch, and Mikey Graham.
He said about the day Stephen came out to his parents: “Stephen was a mess. The anxiety, the tears, the screams – we were so scared he’d do something stupid.”
In 2007, Boyzone re-formed and by 2009 Stephen had died from an undiag-nosed heart condition aged 33.
Ronan said: “I had to call the lads and give them the news.
“It was so sad. Awful. Preventable, too, if we’d known.”
‘Boyzone: No Matter What’ airs on Sky Documentaries and Now from 2 February at 9pm.
