Ryan Confidential Transcript (Part 6)

The last part of the Gerry Ryan interview. The lads talk about what would happen if their partners ever asked them to leave the band.

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Gerry Ryan: Can I ask you all then this question: how do your partners feel about being part of the public persona?

Shane: They don’t like it, I think, is… is the right answer. But they… they know that it’s part of what…

GR: Now, Shane, when you say ‘they don’t like it’, do you mean ‘they really don’t like it and this is something I’m gonna have to end up dealing with’?

Shane: Well they’d rather not be in the spotlight. They’d rather not, y’know, have to… have to worry about things if they’re going… if y’know, we’re on holidays and some of us have got pictures before on holidays and stuff like that and they’re never gonna be flattering photographs. They don’t like that side of it, if you like. The fact that we bring attention to them that they don’t need to have, if you know what I mean.

GR: Have you had the conversation, have you had the ‘look, what about the car, what about the helicopter, what about the villa…?’

Shane: No no no, not in that way.

GR: ‘…don’t be giving out to me.’

Shane: No they don’t give out about it. They don’t… it’s not like that. They don’t give out about it. They know…

GR: Not ‘they’. Your missus.

Shane: Yeah, Gillian, she understands what… what it is, y’know, she understands that that’s part of my life. She’s understood from the very start.

GR: What if she said to you: ‘I can’t handle this anymore, you have to leave Westlife.’

Kian: A person that loves you will never put that demand on you.

Shane: Yeah.

GR: That’s an amazing response. ‘A person that loves you will never say that to you.’

Kian: No. A person that loves you will never demand that off you, for you to give up your passion. For you to give up the thing that you…

GR: But what about their passion?

Kian: But that’s…

Nicky: I’d be gone if Georgina said that to me.

GR: Alright, let’s… okay, we’ve gone…

Shane: It’s grand, I’m happy enough, we’ve had enough.

GR: You’re happy out.

Shane: Yep.

GR: Okay.

Kian: I’d be happy out at this stage. I’d say… I’d say goodbye to Westlife at this stage. Because of the last eight years. If she said it to me at the start of the band, I’d say ‘no way, forget about it’. But she would never, ever, ever ask me to do that. And neither would Georgina, and neither would Gillian, and neither would Kevin. And that’s why we’re with them people.

GR: You don’t know that.

Kian: We do know that, because we wouldn’t be with them if they did.

GR: Sorry, hold on, guys, you actually don’t know that.

Shane: Yeah, but you can’t tell the future.

GR: You don’t know what the futures gonna hold for you.

Shane: Why do you think we’d… they’d ever want us to leave?

Kian: Unless something drastic happened…

GR: I’ll tell you why I think this, right. Because I think that one of the most challenging things for anybody is to be associated with somebody who’s famous, is in the public eye, and who becomes iconic. All of which you four guys are. And you don’t realise it.

Kian: The only person who might not do that in probably that respect is Nicky because of… of…

GR: So when your partners say, like ‘I can’t take it anymore, I can’t take it anymore’, you’re all going to slip.

Mark: No no, I don’t think it’s a thing of just someone turning around and going ‘right, that’s it’, like as in it’s their decision, ‘I’m gonna call it a day for you in Westlife, right, you can come home to me.’

GR: But that’s what happens in relationships

Mark: Mm.

Shane: I can never see it happening. I can honestly never see that happening. I could never see any…

GR: Now now now hold on, bear with me, right? This happens in relationships. If it happens to you… if it happens to you (Nicky), you’ll slip.

Nicky: I think I’m not naïve to think that something like that couldn’t happen, especially if the way we’re planning Westlife to go for the next ten years, now we’re signing new contracts and stuff.

GR: Yep.

Nicky: And I think if one of our spouses was to crack under pressure, with kids and school, with you away all the time and around the world.

Shane: Yeah.

Nicky: And if it… I’m not saying it’ll happen over dinner one night, she’ll say ‘you have to leave’, you’re like ‘alright lads, I’m gone’.

GR: That’s exactly the way it happens.

Nicky: Yeah, no but I’m not saying I’d make that decision, I’d like… I would say I’d ring the lads and explain it like that. Obviously it’s not a decision that you would just make in twenty-four hours. I would try talk things around, see if we can make things better in the situation. But if it was the last straw… I would go. Absolutely!

GR: You’d go. What would you do?

Kian: In that scenario I’d go, yeah.

Shane: Go, definitely. Without a doubt.

Mark: Honestly he would never say that. He wouldn’t say ‘it’s me or the band’, there’d be like massive reasons. Probably if it did happen – touch wood it never will – you’d have to be going through months and months of problems in the relationship. It’d be a last resort.

Shane: It’d have to be something, it’d be either problems within the relationship, or problems with kids, or problems with school or something like that. That’s the only way I can see it.

GR: Isn’t it fantastic that we’re all suffering from the same delusion?

Mark: (laugh)

GR: Westlife, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you.

Nicky: Thank you

Shane: Cheers, Gerry

Kian: Cheers