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Explosive Boyzone documentary sheds light on ‘cruel’ treatment of band

Singers say Walsh ‘promised us the sun, moon, and stars’

Maira Butt
Wednesday 15 January 2025 13:03 GMT
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Boyzone documentary first look reveals Louis Walsh's surprise reaction to Gately coming out

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An explosive documentary details the “cruel” treatment that boy band Boyzone suffered under the management of Louis Walsh.

No Matter What, will be released on 2 February on Now and Sky Documentaries, and features candid interviews and footage of band members Ronan Keating, Shane Lynch, Stephen Gateley, Keith Duffy and Mikey Graham.

”We were a bunch of kids put together. We weren’t perfect, we weren’t polished,” Keating says in the trailer for the film.

Walsh, who is widely considered the mastermind behind the band says, “I prefer ordinary people, because they work harder. And they do whatever you want at the start.”

Lynch admits that the former X Factor judge “promised us the sun, moon, and stars.”

Walsh is apparently unapologetic as he says: “They believed their own publicity. They forgot I wrote it.”

The group admits they went through some “cruel” times during their run in the group under Walsh’s leadership.

“There were things that happened that were cruel,” says Duffy in the trailer.

A synopsis for the documentary reads: “They were one of the most successful and iconic boybands of all time – but behind-the-scenes, conflict and rivalry, betrayal and tragedy led to their falling apart.

Band say they endured ‘cruel’ times
Band say they endured ‘cruel’ times (Getty Images)

“Now, thirty years on, all four remaining members - Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch and Michael ‘Mikey’ Graham, as well as their estranged manager, Louis Walsh – reveal the truth of what really happened, the extraordinary highs of their meteoric rise to fame, and the huge costs that being in a boyband had on each of them.”

Part of the show focuses on late singer Gately, who died in October 2009, aged 33. The programme looks at when the singer publicly came out as gay, when pressurised by a tabloid.

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Walsh smiles as he looks back on how the news made front-page headlines. Meanwhile, main singer Keating is seen breaking down in tears.

Walsh in ‘No Matter What’
Walsh in ‘No Matter What’ (Sky Documentaries/NOW)

It comes after Walsh delivered an expletive-ridden rant against Keating during his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother last year.

As music by the singer played in the house, Walsh described it as a “great song”, before telling Sharon Osbourne: “He was such a p****.

“Everybody thinks he’s a lovely guy, do you know what I mean?”

Walsh then claimed: “He hasn’t had a hit record since I left. He sacked me.”

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