MEDIA

Stephen Patrick David Gately was born on 17th March 1976 to parents, Margaret and Martin. A family of seven, including his parents; Stephen had three older siblings; Mark, Michelle and Alan and a younger brother; Tony.

Always a quiet and shy child; Stephen enjoyed school, with his best subjects being Art, English and Science. Drama was another subject that he loved; his interest was sparked by one particular teacher who he credited with giving him more confidence and bringing him out of himself. Stephen also joined a drama group outside of school at his local youth club and later went onto do an acting course at The Gaiety Theatre. This then led onto him appearing in couple of films as extras; the first being the Irish film ‘The Commitments,’ where he can be seen in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment at the beginning of the film, haggling for stuff in the market with his mum, Margaret. The second was a film about the Guildford Four called ‘In the name of the father’ but unfortunately the scene where Stephen was throwing bricks from a rooftop was cut from the final edit.

Stephen was a part of a local dance troop named ‘Black Magic’ for five years and when he was 13; they won the All-Ireland Disco-Dancing competition. He also went down the route of modelling for a little while; modelling clothes for department stores and taking part in fashion shows at Butlins.

Stephen left school just before taking his Leaving Certificate and went on to do a few jobs in his teenage years including working at a local pub, cleaning glasses at The Olympia Theatre and a job at Makullas Clothes shop.

The entertainment world had always appealed to him, though, so when auditions for an Irish boyband came up, Stephen jumped at the chance. Singing George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper,’ Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Hello’ and ‘Right here waiting’ by Richard Marx in a total of three auditions; he was finally told he’d made it into the band alongside Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch, Ronan Keating and later, Mikey Graham. After the early days of fighting to be heard; Boyzone went onto become one of the most popular groups of the nineties, achieving major international success. Stephen quickly became known as the cute one in the band and along with Ronan he sang lead vocals on most songs. Boyzone also gave him the chance to fulfil a boyhood dream; Stephen loved Disney movies and had always wanted to sing a song from one and in ’97 that came to pass when he sang ‘Shooting Star’ from ‘Hercules.’ The song appeared on the ‘Baby can I hold you’ single and reached No.2 in the charts. Stephen also played a massive part in Boyzone recording their biggest hit; musicals were another love of his and in 1998 he worked with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, recording ‘No matter what’ for ‘Whistle down the wind.’ A song that was only supposed to be his project was re-recorded with the rest of the lads and became number one in the charts for three weeks, selling over a million units.

Like the other lads; Stephen took on other challenges that being in a famous band brought him; presenting things such as The Disney awards (’98), The Smash hits awards, The Childline concert and Electric Circus (all ’99)

In 1999, Stephen’s private life became very public, when through The Sun newspaper; he announced to fans that he was in fact gay. With all the boys having settled down at this point, it was becoming harder to keep up the pretence of ‘finding the right girl one day’ and he agonised over the decision to tell the public. The decision was made a little quicker when someone threatened to go to the press but Stephen was given the opportunity to tell things his way, culminating in the newspaper interview in the June. Initially he was worried how the fans would react and how it would affect the group’s popularity, however, he needn’t have worried, as the support shown to him was immense and Boyzone continued to have as much success as before. Proof of that support came at the end of the year when he won the Smash hits hero of the year award. At the time, Stephen was in a relationship with Eloy De Jong; a singer from Dutch boyband ‘Caught in the act.’

With Boyzone heading towards a well earned break; Stephen took up other individual projects; he voiced the character of Blackavar in three episodes of ITV’s animated series, ‘Watership Down’ and also sang the theme tune, ‘Bright eyes’ – a song written by Mike Batt and originally sung by Art Garfunkel. The song became very familiar to Boyzone fans, as he sang it on their last arena tour, flying over the audience, suspended on wires. As well as that, he took part in ITV’s Abbamania, singing ‘Chiquitita,’ his version of the song was also included on a compilation album that tied in with the programme, which went to No.1 in that specific chart.

After concluding the final shows of their ‘99/’00 tour at Dublin’s Point Depot, each of the Boyzone lads went out on their own, taking different career paths. Stephen signed a solo deal with Polydor Records and set about recording his own album. First, he released