So much for a Boyzone reunion folks.
Stephen Gately is busy working his boyish charms on St Peter while the rest of us bicker over puke, speculative evidence and an oddly-placed Bulgarian.
The Majorca Press recently felt the need to suggest that Steve was smoking ‘cannabis’ the night before he died and ‘knew that was not the cause of his death’. Now there’s a strange breed of paparazzo: ‘I know amigos, let’s take the bastard out of the death-crouch and crucify him, never mind relevance! Por Favor! We’re the Spanish Inquisition, and by the way, we’re trained doctors too.’
Smoking ‘cannabis’ in your own home isn’t illegal in Spain and probably isn’t newsworthy, but as you can see – some people will do anything for a scoop. An autopsy revealed that Gately choked on his own vomit and tissue samples were sent to a Barcelona lab for further tests.
“The autopsy revealed Stephen had taken cannabis, and his husband and another man present on the night he died have confirmed this in interviews,” said reporters to The Sun. “They have said Stephen did not take any other drugs, but the toxicology tests are being carried out to confirm this.”
Not a happy day for the Boyzone enthusiasts out there, especially as the boy-band were set for a comeback. Like em or not, there’s no denying that the babyfaced Irish foursome and their ‘nice-guy’ manager Louis Walsh had a massive impact on European pop and even paved the way for a handful of equally irritating clones.
Walsh and bandmates were said to be ‘shocked’ and ‘devastated’ by the loss of their friend and a slew of celebrities including Brian McFadden, Stephen Fry and Emma Bunton mourned his loss via Twitter. 2009 looks like a morbid little year for packaged popstars – aren’t we lucky there’s a televised machine to replace our fallen heroes. Here’s to X Factor!
Simon Cowell paid tribute to the singer in front of X Factor finalists by saying Stephen’s death was ‘really, really tragic’ while fellow judge Dannii Minogue tweeted: ‘R.I.P. STEVEN GATELY’. Louis Walsh did not appear on the show and was clearly very upset.
Walsh was responsible for creating Boyzone in the 90s and managed them for seven years, achieving 16 top-three singles and six number ones. He recently told the Irish Times that he would have thought twice about auditioning Gately if he’d known he was gay.
“It wasn’t cool then to have a gay guy in the band,” he said. “I think people are racist and homophobic. They just pretend they’re not. It’s the way we’re brought up.”
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Dabby says
Dannii Minogue could’ve at least Googled his name to make sure she’d spelt it right.
MaryB says
I agree with you about the lack of compassion the media creates – going for the ‘sensational healines….but did want to comment that Boyzone is not an “Irish foursome” – there are 5 members of Boyzone – Ronan Keating, Stephen Gately, Mikey Graham, Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy.
halo says
The headline is right, Dignity is dead.
It’s really sad that spanish tabloids went out of their way to highlight drug use, even if it had nothing to do with his demise.
It is sad to see anyone, famous or otherwise lose their life at such a young age. 33 is not old.
The media in general should have a little bit more compassion or empathy when things like this happen.
John K says
Yeah dignity is dead, let the press dish all the dirt they can possibly find, no feelings for family , partner or friends.
Gill says
dannii did spell it right. her tweet was ‘R.I.P. Stephen Gately
3:00 AM Oct 11th from UberTwitter’. article has copied it wrongly.