‘I remember Bono warning me not to touch cocaine – but it was too late': Anthony Kavanagh on addiction, Stephen Gately and hiding his sexuality

Irish Independent

3 days ago

It was the late 90s, by which point the Manchester-born singer had released two albums and enjoyed a run of chart singles, including the top 10 hit, I Can Make You Feel Good.
'I don't know how I ended up in there, but I somehow did,' Kavanagh says. 'I thought I was a man of the world and I was only about 19. But I do remember him quite seriously saying to me, 'whatever you do Kavana, don't do cocaine'.
'Unfortunately, in that moment in time, it was a little too late for that, but I was like a deer in the headlights going, 'yes sir'.'
It should have been different. Achieving his teenage dreams of appearing on Top of the Pops and gracing the cover of Smash Hits, Kavanagh (47) moved to Los Angeles and turned his hand to acting in 2001 when he was dropped from his record label, Virgin.
Yet, as he points out in his memoir Pop Scars, life after 90s pop stardom had no shortage of dark, low moments. He lays many of the dizzying highs and hellish lows out in the book in arrestingly vivid detail, often with a side helping of gallows humour.
He opens with the moment where he wakes up in a stranger's apartment, having just been paid for sex. There are the lows of alcoholism and drug addiction.
There was the moment where he met a homeless woman and ended up smoking crack in a skip in Hackney with her, later giving her his bank card and PIN number to score more drugs. In among the pop anecdotes are poignant passages about loss, bereavement and rehab.
And then, there was one of his lowest points. 'I do remember coming back from America and I just couldn't put the payments on my parents' house anymore, which I take full responsibility for,' he says.
They were in their 70s and I had to move them and it was the most gutting feeling
'I was living pillar to post, staying with friends, trying to get another comeback going, and I remember going to a phone box and phoning my mum and dad to tell them that we're going to lose the house, basically, and then walking around in circles, wondering how the hell it's come to this. They were in their 70s and I had to move them and it was the most gutting feeling.'
Kavanagh's father was from Crumlin. He moved to Manchester as a young man and brought the best of his homeland with him.
'I've always felt more Irish than English, to be honest with you. Oddly, I didn't go to Dublin until I'd started my pop career, but you just feel a connection, don't you?' he says.
He talks of a number of beloved aunties and cousins, one of whom gave him his first piano.
In the Kavanagh household, Irish TV and radio were on daily, making the moment when he was asked to appear on The Late Late Show all the sweeter.
'He [his dad] was very proud when I was asked to go on that show,' Kavanagh says, adding that Gay Byrne was the show's master of ceremonies at the time. 'I remember the guests and his charm and his humour – he was a real character.'
Growing up in working-class Moston, Kavanagh, a strange mix of introvert and extrovert, believed he would be a popstar. With his pin-up looks and telegenic presence, it didn't take long for people to take notice.
Asked to support Boyzone on tour in 1996, he recalls meeting the band and noting that they felt like home, with their accents and humour.
Ronan Keating was the apparent frontman ('He gets a pass to be a little more sure of himself'), while Kavanagh got on well with Keith Duffy ('an open book and a whole lot of fun') and Shane ('a rogue of a man with a laid-back vibe about him').
Mikey Graham was a little more serious and quieter than the others, yet Kavanagh was instantly smitten by Stephen Gately.
Tentatively, they both realised, without talking too much about it, that the other was gay, yet closeted in the pop world, and they enjoyed a brief fling on the tour, in a moment that Kavanagh described in Pop Scars as 'a glimpse of what innocent, real, genuine connection with another feels like'.
'The exciting thing about being on tour was being suddenly around loads of people and you can get a bit disguised in it all,' he says.
'You'd be doing your sound check and you'd pass each other. [Boyzone would] be very busy because they were big stars, but you'd have a little chat with Stephen and get these little flutters where you think, 'oh God, I wish I could say something'.
I remember being a bit crestfallen, especially when the tour finished... and the sadness of not being around this person all the time
'It sounds a bit corny, but I suddenly felt there was someone else like me. And not only that, but I think he likes me too... You know when you get that first rush of attraction with somebody and it's mutual? And I think because there was an element of being secretive, there's that as well.
'We know he went on to find true love and get married, but it was my first experience of navigating relationships, texting and boundaries and, 'do I text straight back?'.'
Owing mainly to busy schedules and globetrotting, their connection was short-lived.
'I remember being a bit crestfallen, especially when the tour finished, because of the sadness of the tour ending and then the sadness of not being around this person all the time, but you're whisked away and on to the next thing.'
Kavanagh recalls the moment when he found out Gately had died in 2009 at the age of 33. 'It was a complete shock. The first time I'd experienced the death of someone that I knew that wasn't a family member,' he says. 'I still can't quite believe it, to be honest.'
Kavanagh does recall how both he and Gately – and doubtless some others worried about revealing their sexuality – would politely dodge the girlfriend question, or talk on autopilot about the women they fancied when asked by journalists.
Mainly, Kavanagh worried about what his fanbase might think if he wasn't straight. Alcohol and drugs loomed large as a means of comfort, of escape.
'Once you start [that], you collude in the lie,' he says. 'You've made your bed, now you've got to lay in it. And it kind of gets a bit awkward. You'd be racking your brains trying to answer. I loved girls, but I didn't understand what it was like to be sexually attracted to one.'
He recalls hanging out with the Spice Girls and being 'terrified' they would realise he was gay. He laughs a little at the times he had to mask his sexuality around his pop peers.
'Some of the other pop lads backstage would be all, 'Oh, she's really sexy', and we'd go, 'Really? That's not what we'd say. We prefer her over there'.'
These days, Kavanagh is enjoying chatting to journalists about his book, enthused about writing about his addiction from the other side. He feels creatively invigorated and back in the proverbial swing of things.
In my day, there was no social media, no camera phones – who knows what that would have been like
He is now sober three years and is excited once again about meetings and opportunities.
The pop industry is a very different beast, for any number of reasons, since Kavanagh's heyday. Supports for mental health and addiction are offered and pop stars can build their own audiences on social media.
Pop's dream factory still has a tendency to spit its players back out on to the street, but it's not quite as vicious a machine as it once was.
'In my day, there was no social media, no camera phones – who knows what that would have been like,' he says. 'Then, it was very much, meet the manager, go to the record label, get the deal. Now, everyone can be famous from their living room.
'I remember hanging out with a woman, some player in the music business, and she once said to me, 'remember, it's called the music business, not the music friendship'. I'll never forget that.'
'Pop Scars' by Anthony Kavanagh is out now via Bonnier books.