It’s been 30 years since five Irish lads with cheeky glints in their eyes and angelic voices burst onto the scene. Their name was Boyzone, they’d been hand-picked by Louis Walsh as Gaelic rivals to Take That, and soon, their Smash Hits posters were pinned to the bedroom walls of pre-teen girls across the UK. Standing front and centre – and, at just 17, the band’s youngest member – was a blonde spiky-haired lad named Ronan Keating.
Three decades later, he’s still a household name. He’s also a father of five, and – brace yourselves – a grandfather of one (we can only pray we look as good as him when we’re grandparents). So, how does it feel to be 30 years deep into a successful showbiz career? Ronan tells heat he’s still pinching himself,
all these years later.
“I’m feeling very lucky, very blessed and very grateful to still get away with this,” he confesses in his instantly recognisable Dublin drawl. “You have imposter syndrome as a performer – as an artist, you always feel like someone’s going to find you out, and that still might happen.”
The odds are unlikely, we reckon, considering the 47 year old is booked and busier than ever. As well
as acting as a coach on The Voice Kids UK last year and The Voice Germany, he presents on Magic Radio.
Then there’s the singing – with fans patiently awaiting a new release, following his 12th solo album Songs From Home in 2021. That’s no small feat for a performer who never thought he could go it alone in the first place. In fact, it was apparently thanks to director Richard Curtis, who enlisted him to record a song for his 1999 romcom Notting Hill, that he dared to venture solo. The song was that enduring earworm When You Say Nothing At All, which went to No1 in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, and turned Ronan from a well-known boybander into an international solo star.
“When Richard phoned me and asked me to sing for the soundtrack, it was kind of scary, because I was
still very much in Boyzone at the time,” he remembers today. “We had decided we were going to take a break, but I didn’t know what that break meant for me. I was scared, but I did it, and it was the best move
I ever made in my career, because I’m still here all these years later.”
It’s that “do the thing that scares you” energy that’s propelled Ronan’s lot in life – but there’s still one challenge he refuses to tackle. “I’ve been asked to do Strictly Come Dancing, and I love the show, but
it’s not for me,” he tells us. “I’ve got two left feet. When I go on holiday, I don’t wear flip-flops, I wear flip-flips.”
As for reuniting with Boyzone, he sadly tells us there are currently no plans to perform together again, following their 25th anniversary celebrations in 2019. But, he teases, “We’ve got something on the cards, which is coming towards the end of the year and is very exciting. It’s something about the band – a journey and an adventure." A documentary, we ask? “Let’s see what happens,” he smiles.
Despite his coyness, there’s one thing he’s not shy in spilling and that’s his love for his family. Ronan shares three grown-up children, Jack, 25, Missy, 23, and Ali, 18, with his ex-wife, Yvonne Connolly. He married his second wife, Storm Uechtritz, in 2015, and the couple share two children together – Cooper, seven, and Coco, four. Then, making us all feel old, the singer became a grandfather last year, after Jack welcomed his baby daughter, Maya Ann.
“You never know what’s round the corner, do you?” he grins, reflecting on the double whammy of becoming a father again and a grandfather within the space of a few years. “Jack’s doing great, he’s
a great dad. It’s all lovely, wonderful and beautiful.”
We hate to say it (OK, we don’t), but life is a roller-coaster for the star – and he’s not getting off this ride anytime soon. ■
Ronan was in attendance at the Spring Ball in aid of Style for Stroke and the Melissa Bell Foundation