Stephen Gately, one of the two lead singers of the Irish pop group Boyzone and the first member of a “boy band” to come out of the closet when he did so in 1999, passed away over the weekend while on holiday in Spain. Boyzone had six No. 1 singles in the UK since its inception in 1993; the group broke up in 2000, and reunited in 2007 for a tour and a greatest-hits album that included a few new tracks.
Alexis Petridis at The Guardian has a good capsule of Gately’s career, and how his coming out paved the way for other pop stars like Lance Bass to be open about their sexuality. A few of Boyzone’s UK chart-toppers are below.
“Words” (1996)
“No Matter What” (1998)
“When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going)” (Live in 1999)
Gately was 33.
Boyzone’s Stephen Gately was no pioneer but he broke other barriers [Guardian]
Fans back Boyzone’s Stephen [BBC]
As a young gay boy in the nineties, I was surprisingly uninterested in American boy bands. None of the boys were interesting to me; none certainly were cute in my young eyes. My aunt lived in the UK and sent me some pop records at the time; it had to be circa 1996, because one of them was a Spice Girls single that came out before they had dominated the US. But I sort of loved the Boyzone reocrds for all the reasons I hated US boy bands, and Stephen was my favorite. Years later when he came out as gay, it blew my mind; I felt like my intuition was spot on for having had the crush on the band’s singular homo, and I was glad he was because he was such a sensitive and empathetic young person. He wasn’t brilliant, he wasn’t the voice of a generation, he didn’t inspire pop culture in any immeasurable way. But he was a nice guy who sang really well and was my first exposure to a positive gay role model who was in any way intrinsic to the things I knew in my own life, and I’m sad to hear that he died so young after having weathered things so well. I hope he’s at peace.
So glad you covered this.
@ampersandparade: I agree with you about liking Boyzone for all the reasons I disliked the American ones.
They were one of the first groups to, however inexplicably, break through my pretensions. Stephen was also my favorite, though I was both unsurprised and so proud when he came out, and when he got to act opposite a male love interest in one of their latter day videos.
Cheers, Stephen, rest in peace.
Not to make light of a photograph of the tragically departed, but: Was Stephen posing with Marge Simpson in that shot?!
@Chris Molanphy: Yes, indeed. It looks like a red carpet for “The Simpsons’ Movie”