Stephen Gately, the beloved member of Boyzone who passed away at the age of 33, is being fondly remembered by bandmates and fans on the 14th anniversary of his death.
Gately died unexpectedly in his sleep on October 10, 2009, when he suffered a pulmonary oedema resulting from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect while on holiday in Majorca with his husband, Andrew Cowles.
The singer was forced to come out as gay in 1999, when he was just 23 after a tabloid paper threatened to publish an exposé.
During an appearance on Big Brother in 2018, fellow Boyzone member Shane Lynch recalled the event, “He was distraught. They said to him, ‘Look, you can tell your story, or we’re going to print our story.’ It nearly destroyed him. It really nearly destroyed him.”
He then continued, “He came out, and he couldn’t believe the weight off his shoulders.”
Gately bravely took the decision to com out, telling The Sun newspaper, “I’m gay and in love”. The move came just six years after the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland and blazed a trail for LGBTQ+ musicians and artists to follow.
Taking to Instagram this morning to mark the anniversary of the untimely passing of Stephen Gately, Boyzone bandmate Ronan Keating wrote, “Ah Brother how I miss you 14 years passed and it’s like you’re still here because of the music.”
He continued, “I just imagine you are still in north london loving life Hanging with Phil the butcher and pat the baker.”
The post was accompanied by a photo montage of the pair and fellow Boyzone band members Lynch, Keith Duffy and Mikey Graham, set to the duet ‘Everyday I Love You’, sung by Keating and Gately.
The post concluded, “I do wonder what you would make of it all today. You had such a definite idea of what we are, who we are and when someone was a total waffler. Love ya Pal miss ya every day”.
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In a further tribute to his friend, speaking to fellow host Harriet Scott on their morning radio show, Magic Breakfast, Keating described, “He was always like a little brother to me, even though he was older.”
He went on to recount how, after the bandmates arrived back in Dublin to arrange the funeral, they all went to a tattoo shop in the middle of the night to get matching Superman tattoos in their friend’s memory.
Welling up, he recalled, “We stayed there until about four or five in the morning, I can’t remember. Anyway, the sun came up while we were still getting those tattoos, and we played a lot of Boyzone songs, and we cried a lot.”
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Another Instagram page, @stephen_gately, also shared a montage of outtakes from interviews with the singer, saying, “Today marks 14 years since Steo passed, but what is 14 years when we have a lifetime of memories?
“Here are just a few that I love, because seeing Steo laugh or smile always made my day ❤️ We love you and miss you Steo ❤️”
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