Stephen Gately

Stephen Gately grew up in relative poverty in the working-class Sheriff Street area of Dublin, the fourth of five children of a decorator and a cleaner. As a teenager he performed in school musicals and plays.

In 1993 he joined the newly formed boy band Boyzone and, with Ronan Keating, became one of its two lead singers. Boyzone became one of the most successful pop groups of the 1990s: all their studio albums during Gately’s lifetime reached number one in Britain, and sixteen consecutive singles reached the top five.

In 1999 Gately learned that a tabloid was about to reveal that he was gay. He decided to come out himself – at a time when an openly gay member of a teen boy band was unthinkable – and feared it would end his career. Instead, fans and the public largely supported him. In 2003 he and his partner held a commitment ceremony, and in 2006 they entered a civil partnership in London. After Boyzone split, he released a solo album, “New Beginning” (2000), and acted in musicals such as “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.

In 2008 Boyzone reformed. In the video for their song “Better”, Gately and his partner appeared as the first gay couple in a boy band video. On 10 October 2009 he died suddenly of an undiagnosed heart condition at his home in Mallorca, aged 33. The British newspaper “The Times” called him a hero of gay rights for the way he had responded to being “smoked out of the closet”.