Stephen Gately: A Boy's Own Secret

Former Boyzone manager Louis Walsh has opened up about late '90s heartthrob Stephen Gately, saying he feared his career would be over if the public found out he was gay.

Kate Thornton, on her BBC radio show Paper Cuts, also quizzed the X Factorjudge on how he made Boyzone famous, and how he helped hide Gately's sexual orientation...

As a manager, he saw it as his job to cover up Stephen's sexuality, even telling the press he was in a relationship with Mariah Carey: "I married Stephen Gately off to so many people because Stephen didn't want anyone to know he was gay at the start.

"He was dreading all of his life that this was going to ruin his career... He was in the end [outed] by The Sun but it didn't matter, in fact it was the best thing for him, he was free then, he had nothing to him.

"At that time it wasn't cool to be gay and be in a boyband, because the girls had to like them." ...

Digital Spy.

The exchange below is interesting.

When I suggested at the time that Stephen had been outed by The Sun - and they'd blackmailed him into 'coming out' by saying they were going to run a story as part of Boyzone's entourage had sold them some photos of him canoodling with a man - their press officer got very angry and assured me this was nonsense.

His big coming out interview in The Sun was most odd - none of the quotes sounded like him, and bizarrely for such a big media event, they neglected to do a photo session.

Walsh: ‘He was dreading all of his life that this was going to ruin his career… He was in the end [outed] by The Sun but it didn’t matter, in fact it was the best thing for him, he was free then, he had nothing to hide.’

Thornton: ‘I remember getting a phone call from you when I was the editor of Smash Hits and you said “Is it OK if I tell the Daily Star that you’re going out with Stephen Gately because he’s gay?”

Walsh: ‘The next day I opened the papers and you had him with Mariah Carey – I phoned you up and said you could have gone with something more plausible! You said “No. It’s global.”‘

Paper Cuts, BBC Radio 2.

Of course, it wasn't Louis Walsh's decision to keep young Stephen in the closet.

And when did you come out exactly?