Westlife star Brian McFadden has accused former manager Louis Walsh of fat-shaming him, saying he "hated" the "horrendous" music mogul.
The singer left the beloved Irish boyband in 2004, claiming at the time it was the only way to save his ill-fated marriage to Atomic Kitten star Kerry Katona. But a new Louis Theroux documentary on the phenomenon of boybands sheds new light on Brian's relationship with Popstars and X Factor judge Louis Walsh.
Boybands Forever consists of three hour-long episodes, which will air on the BBC, and sees members of various boybands discuss the ups and downs of fame. In the documentary, Brian gives a scathing insight into his seemingly close friendship with Louis, 72.
He admits: "I hated Louis. Louis would walk into a room and go, 'Hey everyone', and then he'd look at me and go, "Brian..." (Blowing his cheeks out). Basically saying that I'm fat. He was just horrendous. But very few things that he touched didn't turn to gold."
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BBC/Youtube)Discussing Westlife's meteoric rise to fame, Brian explained how he and Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan became well-known practically overnight. He revealed: "I was working in McDonald's as a security guard and six months later Swear It Again went to No1." Speaking on the three-part series, Brian explains: "It was made very clear to us by the powers that be that our personal lives 100 percent came second to Westlife. We had times where we had relatives die and we couldn't go to the funeral because there was a gig or an interview that day."
The Mirror has contacted Louis' reps for comment.
Brian's bombshell claims aren't the first time we've heard about Louis' alleged attitude towards the lads, who admit they were regularly subjected to abuse. Kian previously told the Mail : "We lived in fear of Louis. He was like 'You're done. I'm going to kick you out of the band. I'm going to put you on the next plane home. Only four people can fit in a taxi, not five'." While Nicky added that Louis "was always on" at the lads. He would insult their teeth, call them fat and remind them "there are only three Bee Gees".
Speaking at a special Evening with Westlife event in 2021, Shane explained that he fluffed his audition in front of Simon Cowell as he had been out the night before and enjoyed a heavy evening of drinking.
He recalls experiencing Louis’ wrath, explaining: “I was hungover and messed up the audition and when we left Louis slapped me around the face and shouted at me.”
Shane previously spoke of the incident, revealing to Pat Kenny on chat show Pat Kenny In the Round, in 2015: ''We walked in and we met this man called Simon Cowell for the first time. It didn't go well and Louis wasn't very happy with me afterwards. He kind of lost it. He slapped me in the face. It was crazy. He was shouting 'what are you doing' and he was shaking me and saying 'I was counting on you in there.' I thought my life was over. I thought that's it, I've ruined my life. It was horrible but he said 'don't worry, I've got a plan'."
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