Mark is the gay man in Westlife

Published in January 2010

Last time Mark Feehily from Westlife was in Sweden he wasn.t ready for an interview about his sexuality, but now I have the opportunity to find out more about the boyband member who in 2005 came out as gay.

The Westlife singer Mark Feehily is relaxed, laughs a lot and offers expensive water with bubbles when I meet him in a suite at hotel Sheraton in Stockholm. He apologizes if he comes across as tierd after a long day of traveling and promoting, but I don.t notice any tierdness, he just seems genuinely interested in my questions. Mark has been in Westlife since the start in 1998, and the group has sold over 43 milion albums over the years.

Three of the boys are married and two of them have children. Mark is the last one in the group to get married, but he has come a bit on the way because of the engagement ring on his finger.

- We have all changed very much since the breakthrough. I was a young boy from the counrtyside, and I had only sung in the local church and had never flown before we became Westlife. We are now older and more experienced and have to think about everything around us in a different way, but it,s still fun.

The new album Where We Are is a little different from their other albums, the group doesn,t work with one and the same producer like they have done before.

- We have refined the sound and there is a bigger difference between the songs, but you can still hear that it is Westlife.

Which one of your old songs do you like the best?

-World of Our Own and Flying Without Wings are two favorites that are still durable. They are soulful and you can vary the song a bit.

and the least?

- A few of the songs from the beginning of our career, they were maybe not that strong but it can also have to do with my voice, I hadn,t developed much back then. But I wouldn,t care much if I didn,t have to sing Uptown Girl again.

What is the most common question you are asked?

- If I,m getting married. That is the question everyone asks me since I got together with Kevin. But if I were about to get married then I promise I would tell everyone immediately because I would be very excited about it.

Since january 2005 Mark is together with former boyband member Kevin McDaid (V) and in a big interview Mark and Kevin did with the gay magazine Attitude in december 2007, they spoke about their love. About how they met on a charity concert in Dublin and that neither of them knew that the other one were gay also how they swaped numbers after a long conversation about divas (Mark loves Mariah Carey and Kevin Christina Aguilera), and that Mark was the one who texted first. Today they are engaged and live in London with their dog Saffy (of course named after the daughter in Absolutely Fabulous).

Have you ever regretted that you came out?

- No, not at all. My life has only improved since I came out and I am so much happier now. I felt trapped by my secret earlier and it was only when I said it that I started to develop as a human being.

The time before Mark came out he remembers it as a hideous time. While the other guys had girlfriends and dated Mark was mostly in his hotel room.

- I put homosexuality on pause, but not my sexuality. I met girls, but never for any long-term. I didn,t want to fool them and make them believe that it would lead to something. After a while I got tired, and realized that the situation was no longer sustainable.

Mark explains that he wished that there would have been signs on him that showed that he was gay, so he did not have the option to hide his sexuality. What he means with that is that a homosexual person who has it so easy to hide their sexuality, can go with that and feel bad over it for a very long time before eventually being forced to deal with it.

- I went through the pain and thought of this every single day, not just the sexual part but the rest: I was in love with guys and could not get outlet for it, get to flirt, dating, and just be in love. While the other guys lived their lives, I was reminded all the time that I was gay and not dared to escape. Between the ages 18 and 24, I didn,t allow myself to develop and all the work around Westlife had to take over everything.

But didn,t the other guys in the band know anything? Didn,t they see how bad you felt?

- No, because I was good at not showing it. I were good at hiding it from everyone, my family, my friends, the guys in the band. It was easy to just bury yourself in the job and put all that to one side. But in the end it had destroyed me.

You come from Ireland where Catholicism is extremely large. Didn't anyone have a problem when one of the country's biggest celebrities came out as gay?

– Catholicism is absolutely a presence and a large part of Irish society. And I grew up in a Catholic village where everyone was Catholics.But I am not a practising Catholic. Hm ... how shall I say? I have not much to say about the Bible and what happened, or did not happened, for over 2000 years ago. I believe that it is rather like old time stories, stories changed along the way and that some things perceived differently. I have never heard a single negative comment from anyone. People are rather curious and I gladly answer their questions. My answers can change people's opinions. I feel that the majority of my native village had never met a gay person before and when I came out all their prejudices went to shame. All they had seen was like the girly barber in the neighbouring village of or television people with glittersuits. I broke the clich and led them to think in a different way.

Have you never been attracted to any of the other guys in the band?

- No, they are like brothers to me. It would indeed be like incest to have feelings for any of them. When I had lived with them for two weeks and heard them fart and seen them drunk all such things disappeared (laughs).

Kevin is your first boyfriend, but you must have dated others before him?

- No, I haven,t dated other guys. Kevin is my first boyfriend and it clicked immediately too. Kevin had, however, dated other guys before, he came out earlier and he has taught me a lot (laughs).

But he is not afraid that you would become eager to meet other guys; you have never tested how it is to be practising gay and single?

- Well, I don't think he is so worried. He is more popular among men than I am, and when we are out, he gets more attention than me. I just get attention because I am in Westlife.

Who in Westlife are most popular among homosexual men?

- I think it depends on the gay guy you ask, but Nicky is definitely Westlife twink
. I have to be the bear because I,m bigger and hairier than the other guys. Or wait, Shane is also quite hairy, so Shane also gets to be a bear.

Boyzone Stephen Gately died earlier this autumn, did you know him?

- Not so well, really. We have met him and his husband a few times. I think it is terribly sad, and feel sorry for his husband and family. He was a good role model and artist who made it easier for me to come out.

 Mark Feehily and the Westlife boys aren"t exactly known for being outrageous.

So when we sat down with Mark Feehily to find out about his recent engagement to former V singer Kevin McDaid, 26, we weren't expecting him to tell us they re getting married in a dungeon wearing leather hot pants. And he didn't.

In fact, he played it so safe and kept their plans so under wraps that we were forced instead to probe him about stalkers, having babies and Brian McFadden.

Mark, 29, is prettier in the flesh than he appears on TV his eyelashes are long enough to swing from. He polite, serious and, after coming out and meeting Kevin five years ago, seems happier than ever.

Indeed, when the couple got engaged in February, he could barely contain himself on Twitter. It's true! Myself and Kevin are engaged! Exciting times ahead! he wrote.

Were here to discuss Westlife's forthcoming pay-per-view gig on Sky, but there are far more pressing concerns namely, the engagement.

Here, Mark tells new! how he feels about popping the question, and why he doesn,t miss Brian McFadden

Congratulations on getting engaged. How are you feeling about the wedding?
Thank you! There nothing planned as of yet, it,s just an engagement. We enjoying being engaged and obviously we excited about various different concepts for the wedding, but nothing has been decided upon. Both of us are very creative-minded people with a million ideas, so there be a lot of time before we lock down exactly what it will be.

But will it be big and lavish?
I be lying if I said I had any idea.

You could arrive at your wedding by helicopter
Well, I don,t have one, but Shane [Filan] does. Maybe I could borrow his

What about outfits?
We haven,t planned anything [laughing]! I could make it up if you want.

Yeah, make it up! So who proposed?
That,s private. We may talk about it one day but I haven,t spoken to Kevin yet about that.

Do you want to have kids?
I,m surrounded by children because Shane and Nicky [Byrne] have kids. I love kids and there,s nothing like the gift