I sigh sadly at the loss of the young man for whom I had to work out how to tell an eight year old that her first pop star crush had ‘come out’ that morning.
Although she was my oldest child and led a relatively sheltered life, her classmates all had older siblings who would have been discussing the event over the breakfast table, resulting in all sorts of playground gossip.
When she returned from school with her questions about the word ‘gay’, I told her that it was absolutely fine for her to like him and want to kiss him, but she had to accept that he would never want to marry her… and that seemed to be sufficient.
Stephen never seemed to receive much adverse publicity after that. Just a shy, quiet, friendly young man, with a ready smile, who wanted to get on with his life and sing and dance for the public. I enjoyed him on the ice dancing show, even though he wasn’t very good. But he was personable and enthusiastic and tried hard.
It seems such a shame that, just as Boyzone were returning the public eye once more, his life has been cut tragically short. Inevitably, there was Press speculation about booze and drugs and the very dodgy jokes did the rounds by text and email but, in the end, it was just death by natural causes at a horribly young age.
RIP Stephen.
Originally posted 2009-10-18 09:41:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Recent Bites