Ronan Keating on year that changed him: ‘I made a mistake, I take the blame.’

By
Louise Gannon

Last updated at 2:28 AM on 27th March 2011

‘It’s been hell. I don’t think in any way I’m through it, but I am dealing with it… I make mistakes. I’m definitely not comfortable with the mistakes that I’ve made and I’m still trying to resolve them,’ said Ronan Keating

Ronan Keating has been famous for 19 of his 34 years. Until a year ago, he seemed almost too good to be true: Boyzone pin-up from working-class Dublin, whose solo career was marked by a never-ending series of successes.

He managed Westlife at the age of 21 and remains one of the UK’s biggest-selling male solo artists. It was written that he prayed every night, remained devoutly Catholic in the face of the rock ’n’ roll and was the perfect father to his three children by his former-model wife, Yvonne.

Then he fell to earth. The angelic star with the altar-boy image had his wings singed a year ago, after it was revealed he’d had an affair with a dancer. It was front-page news, and his reputation took a beating. Worse, he and his wife separated after 12 years of marriage (they’re now back together). The one benefit of the crisis, it seems, is that people no longer hold him to an unrealistically high standard.

‘Every interview I ever sat through normally started with someone saying “You’ve achieved so much for your age” or “You are such a great role model”,’ he says.

‘I always hated that, felt embarrassed about it, because I felt I’d been stuck with a label that was pretty impossible. Then life throws you a curve ball and every-thing changes and you’re blamed for not being this person you never were. As if everything in life was black and white, when we all know it’s a sea of greys.

‘It’s been hell. I don’t think in any way I’m through it, but I am dealing with it. I set myself up for a fall by appearing holier than holy, and I think there may be quite a few people out there who thought, “Thank God – he’s human after all.” I am. I make mistakes. I’m definitely not comfortable with the mistakes that I’ve made and I’m still trying to resolve them.’

‘I love my wife (Yvonne) and my family is everything to me’

The ‘other woman’ was former 27-year-old Boyzone dancer Francine Cornell. The story broke in May last year when Keating and his wife released a surprise statement announcing their amicable separation. The truth quickly emerged. Cornell had toured with Keating and Boyzone; Keating was portrayed as pop’s biggest hypocrite.

It’s worth noting that until now Keating has never discussed the affair, and Cornell has kept her silence.

‘I did make a mistake,’ he says today. ‘And I’m still trying to make up for that. I love my wife and my family is everything to me. Right now I’m trying to be the man I want to be. I’m trying to get there.’

I ask him if in some way it could be said that the whole episode may actually have been good for his image. He looks momentarily stunned.

‘Absolutely not. The people I love the most have been hurt – my family. I take the blame for that. Everyone is responsible for their own actions.’

Keating is something of a conundrum. Part-way through a Boyzone reunion tour – which has received the best reviews of the band’s career – he arrives for Live’s photo shoot at Brighton’s Royal Pavilion wearing jeans, a black jacket and an ethnic-print cotton scarf wound several times around his neck, with black diamonds, beads and tiny silver skulls adorning his wrist. It’s more rock star than boy band.

He cites his former manager Louis Walsh as one of his role models in life, despite the fact that he once fell out with him spectacularly.

‘I learnt a hell of a lot from Louis,’ says Keating. ‘He was a huge part of my life. But I actually feel very comfortable about who I am now. I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve got a confidence about myself; I am embarrassed about mistakes that I have made, but I’m not embarrassed about myself any more. I was for a long time, but that’s all gone. I think I’ve finally grown into my skin.’

In truth Keating has never really been anything other than flawed. When his beloved mother Marie died 13 years ago, he dealt with it by ‘drinking a bottle of Jack Daniel’s a night’, he says.

‘It started as a wake and then I just didn’t stop. I’d sit around with my brothers and sisters, talking and drinking, drinking and talking. And you carry on, because that’s the way you deal with it. I hit the bottle pretty bad.’

He pauses.

‘It was Yvonne who pulled me out of that.’

He pauses again.

‘I love Yvonne very much.’

He says he has changed completely, but can’t quite pinpoint the moment this change took place.

‘At a very young age I was managing a band, and I was coming up against people who were thinking, “He’s only 21 years old.” People were forever telling me I was too serious.

‘It was wonderful having the success, because none of us expected anything when we got together as kids. We worked bloody hard. But I never felt that comfortable about myself – me or the way I looked.’

But surely being blessed with heart-throb status must have helped.

‘No, I was a chicken-chested, buck-toothed kid with the worst haircut.’ He laughs. ‘I work out now; I’ve got older.’

‘Doing the tour has been tough, but it’s also been incredible. There was never any chance of finding a replacement for him, never in a million’: Ronan on Boyzone after Stephen Gately’s (far left) death 18 months ago

Keating is about to reinvent himself as an actor, something he’s wanted to do for about a decade. He auditioned for the lead in Moulin Rouge (‘Ewan McGregor got that one, and fair play to him – he was amazing’) and missed out on parts in The Lord of the Rings and King Arthur.

But this year he’s won two roles: the lead in a romantic comedy, Goddess, which starts filming in Australia next month (he plays a marine biologist), and a role in another film which he can’t yet talk about.

There is, he says, a connection between how he feels about himself now and his abilities as an actor.

‘I wasn’t right before. I didn’t have the confidence in myself as an actor. I think the key to acting is knowing who you are as a person, and that’s where I feel I am now. I’ve wanted to act for a long time. I’ve been taking a few lessons and Sir Ian McKellen gave me the best advice: “Look them in the eye and tell them the truth.”’

He says he’s ‘bloody terrified’ about going on set for Goddess.

‘I’ve been very upfront about how I feel. The director (Mark Lamprell) flew to Vietnam, where I was doing a gig, and that’s when I got the part. I’ve spent hours breaking down the part till I know it backwards, but I’m still terrified. I’m not going to pretend I’m not, because that’s exactly as it is.’

Keating has certainly acquired plenty of life experience to draw on as an actor over the past few years. After the death of his mother came the death of his best friend and bandmate Stephen Gately, who died from a freak pulmonary oedema 18 months ago. It was a death that saw the media spotlight turned onto Gately, his boyfriend and a gay friend who had joined them that night. For Keating, who was working on a Boyzone reunion album, it was just horrendous.

‘It threw the whole world upside down. We thought about not doing the album, just leaving it. But then we decided to battle on. None of us expected the response. It was No 1 for four weeks. That was for Steo.

‘Doing the tour has been tough, but it’s also been incredible. There was never any chance of finding a replacement for him, never in a million. To go out on stage with this Steo-shaped hole has been really tough, but the response from the fans has really helped us get through it. They’ve let us know it’s tough for them too, but they’re with us. As a band we’ve definitely come  out stronger.’

Ronan cites his former manager Louis Walsh as one of his role models in life

After Gately’s death it was Keating who took charge of the funeral. Keating is a doer, good in a crisis, a man who knows how to cope. It’s no coincidence that in his spare time he likes to test himself to the extreme. It’s two years since he went up Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief, and next year he’ll be undertaking the first stage of an ascent of Everest.

‘I’m planning to get to Base Camp next year,’ he says. ‘Climbing Everest is a two- to three-year training plan, but I’m in. I have this absolute love of the elements. I’m obsessed with Bear Grylls and anything to do with the outdoors, survival. It focuses the mind.’

He also plans to swim the Irish Sea in September with Richard Branson and his bandmate Shane Lynch.

‘I’m a terrible swimmer, so I need to get on with some training, but we’ll be doing it in relays. There’s nothing like a challenge.’

A challenge is one thing, but real
fear is another. Last year on a trip which involved a husky safari in
the Arctic, Keating and a friend of his were left on their own for
several hours in temperatures of around -28°C after their guide went
off to find shelter.

‘It was pretty nerve-racking the moment our guide told us to wait and disappeared on his Ski-Doo,’ recalls Keating.

‘We
were in the middle of nowhere with our dogs and sledges, the light was
going, it was beyond freezing, and there’s a thought that you don’t
quite let cross your mind: “What if he doesn’t find us again?”

‘But
you can’t think like that. We took the decision to batten down the
hatches. The big fears are the light going completely and the cold. We
drove across this frozen lake, nailed the leads down into the ice so
the dogs couldn’t run off, grabbed as much wood and foliage from the
side of the lakes as we could possibly carry, then built a massive fire.

‘The
fire served two purposes: it kept us warm and let the guide see us. We
were wearing the proper gear so we were OK, but you can’t mess with
those temperatures. My beard was solid with ice. We focused completely
on building that fire. Once we’d got it going we had one canister of
whisky and then we saw lights from the  Ski-Doo coming and we were out
of there.’

Outdoor
adventures are clearly a good antidote to the pressures of the music
industry. He also says he has an obsession with speed, cars and
watches.

‘I have 47
watches. When Boyzone first hit it big I was forever in Watches of
Switzerland in London spending obscene amounts of money. Now I just
wear one IWC watch. It’s a father-and-son watch. I have the father
watch, which has “Pilot Ronan” engraved on the back, and my son has the
little one with “Co-pilot Jack” engraved on it.’

Keating
owns two Porsches – a 1968 911 and a new  911 GT3 – a Range Rover, a
Land Rover Defender for  off-roading and a beaten-up Ford Bronco. There
are also five Harley-Davidsons split between his homes – two in
Australia (he’s a judge on the Australian version of The X Factor), one
in Portugal and two in Dublin.

If he had to give one piece of advice to anyone hoping to make it in the music business, it would be ‘Surround yourself with people who tell you the truth’.

Keating has, after all, experienced both sides of the industry – the good and the bad. Having embarked on a successful solo career following the heady Nineties Boyzone era, he then had a rift with the man who created the band, Louis Walsh.

They settled their differences a few years ago, and both have made a new career out of The X Factor. It’s been rumoured that Simon Cowell wants Keating on the UK panel after his own departure for the U.S. Keating gives a wry grin.

‘I’d take that job in a heartbeat, but I don’t think Louis would like it. We’ll see.’

Forever challenging himself, Ronan recently released his eighth studio album, When Ronan Met Burt, a collaboration with music legend Burt Bacharach. Few UK artists have been chosen by Bacharach to perform his songs.

‘I genuinely think it’s the best thing I’ve done,’ says Keating. ‘It was also the most terrifying album to make.

‘We recorded it in Studio A at Capitol Records in California, and there were all these people buzzing about. I just got too nervous. I bottled the first song we did, then I got myself together, pulled him aside and asked if I could have a word, and we just sat and talked.

‘I was in awe of him completely, although I have to say we’ve had our rows. I was on the phone to him last night arguing over an eighth of a decibel on the sound. That’s what it’s like.’

So what makes Keating happy in the final analysis? Career, challenges or family?

‘Family. It’s all about family. When I’m away in Australia I miss Yvonne and the kids so much. We speak every day and she comes out when she can. They are everything to me. Yvonne is everything. Absolutely.’

Ronan’s new album ‘When Ronan Met Burt’ is out now