Boyzone's gay tragedy : Little gay boy lost

During the height of their fame in the late 1990s, the five members of pop band Boyzone sat around discussing their various plans for a rare weekend off. 
Their respective agendas involved some resolutely testosterone-charged classic rock star behaviour - car racing, several celebrity parties to attend and a spot of mandatory nightclub excess. 

Throughout the discussion, Stephen Gately remained unusually quiet. When, finally, his band mates demanded to know how he would be spending his free time, Gately, always the most introverted of his famous cohorts, announced somewhat sheepishly he was planning to stay at home, reading horoscopes and indulging his latest interest in New Age crystals. 

Gately never quite fitted the stereotypical image of your average boyband member. 

In truth, that was a role that never sat easily with him and threatened for a time to destroy him as he sought to hide his homosexuality from the heartthrob group's millions of adoring girl fans. 

And when he did finally come out in a blaze of publicity ten years ago, it coincided with him becoming hooked on drugs to deal with a bout depression so severe he became a virtual recluse who confided to friends his suicidal thoughts. 

International fame came to him at an exceptionally young age. 

Gately, the fourth of five children brought up in a tough district of Dublin's city centre, was just 17 when he applied for a band being put together by Irish impresario Louis Walsh in 1993. 

The group's teen-friendly ballads proved a commercial hit, chalking up six No1 singles and selling in excess of 15million records. 

But just as they were hitting the big time, showbusiness was rife with rumours about Gately. The singer went to incredible lengths to keep his homosexuality a secret. 

The band's PR handlers put out smokescreen stories claiming he was dating a series of female pop stars, including Emma Bunton of the Spice Girls and Mandy Smith, the ex-wife of Rolling Stone Bill Wyman. But behind the scenes he had begun a relationship with Dutch singer Eloy de Jong who was himself a member of Europop boyband Caught in the Act.