Kerry. Emily Herbert
quickly. Shane and Mark wrote a song called ‘Together Girl Forever’, made a demo tape of it and sent it to Louis Walsh, who had been the manager of the boy band Boyzone and who was currently looking for a new band to take their place. He liked their sound and signed them up to support the US band Backstreet Boys when they played Dublin, after which there was a change in the line-up. Three of the original members departed and Bryan and Nicky Byrne, both from Dublin, joined the group.
In February 1999, just as the Kittens were slowly beginning to emerge, they held a showcase at London’s Café de Paris. Another name change shortly ensued, this time to Westlife, after they’d heard several US outfits were already called Westside. Their début release in May that year, ‘Swear It Again’, went straight to Number One; so did their four subsequent singles, something that made musical history.
Bryan and Kerry actually met in August 1999 when the Kittens and Westlife did a Smash Hits tour together and, for him, at least, it was love at first sight. ‘He was standing outside a lift,’ said Kerry later, recalling the first time she set eyes on him. ‘He was in a black polo neck and he had long, floppy hair. I remember looking up really high at him, because he’s tall and I’m quite little.’
‘I heard the lift go “Ding”, the doors opening and this girl in a bomber jacket and bog woolly boots ran out,’ added Bryan. ‘I heard her chatting and I turned round and she came up to me.’
‘Being dead cheeky, I went up to him and said, “Hiya! I’m Kerry from Atomic Kitten and my mate Liz is a really big fan of Westlife.” He looked at me really weird.’
On another occasion, Kerry joked that she hadn’t initially recognised him. ‘I met him just before Christmas 1999,’ Kerry said later. ‘I didn’t have a clue who he was. Then I found out how famous and wealthy he was, and I thought, “He’s just the man for me.”’
Indeed, Bryan had to work quite hard to get Kerry to agree to go out with him. ‘Bryan asked me out five times on the night we met,’ she revealed. ‘But I told him that just because he was in a boy band didn’t mean that he had what it takes to go out with me. But he was very caring and very sensitive and he made me laugh a lot.’
‘It’s funny, all the guys in the band had asked her out,’ Bryan said, ‘and so I knew she was going to say no because she’d said no to all the others.’
As it happened, the two became friends before anything started properly between them. ‘Two weeks later, having got to know each other, we ended up having our first kiss,’ Kerry revealed. ‘We were in the hotel having this conversation. Most guys would be pitching you with their eyes, but Bryan sat down and listened. He was so funny and he made me laugh. That was it. We had our first kiss … and then we lost touch.’
‘Even though we’d both had too much to drink, I knew the first time I kissed Kerry that there was something there,’ said Bryan. ‘But the next day, sadly, she left with Atomic Kitten for Japan.’
Leaving for Japan was something Kerry was doing quite regularly at that stage. It was more than likely, though, that the two of them would meet up again, given that they played the same sort of gigs and, indeed, they did, that November. ‘Our bands went on another tour and we just started seeing each other as friends,’ said Kerry. ‘I was single and I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I knew Bryan was with somebody else by this time.
‘Even so, we were getting on really well, flirting with each other and everything. Our bands then went to a party in Glasgow, but the girls in Atomic Kitten didn’t have any spare time for boys. I really liked Bryan, but I thought, “No, he’s not interested in me because he’s with somebody else.” And then at one point during the party, he said, “I really like you.” I said, “Well, you’ve got a girlfriend … the ball’s in your court.”’
‘The girl I was with was nice, but I knew the minute I sat down and talked to Kerry that she was the one I wanted,’ said Bryan. ‘I left the party straight after that and finished with my girlfriend.’
By this time, the attraction was absolutely mutual. ‘I thought she was wild, nuts, a real party animal,’ said Bryan. ‘To be honest with you – and she’s going to hate me for saying this – I thought she was going to be a dumb blonde. But then I sat and talked to her and realised how wrong I was, and how deep and intellectual she was and is. Funny, as well.’
Kerry was equally enthused about her new boyfriend. ‘I tend not to trust people, but I trusted Bryan from the start,’ she said. ‘I could tell he really loved me. He’d get to bed at two in the morning from filming, and he’d have to be up for five o’clock, but he’d walk from his hotel to my hotel just to see me for two hours, and he’d arrange a big breakfast for us. No boyfriend had ever done anything like that for me before.’
Now that the relationship had finally begun, it quickly became extremely serious. ‘He proposed to me after just three weeks and I knew he was the one – he’s the most genuine, down-to-earth person I’ve met in the music business and he’s so caring and loving,’ Kerry said. Proposal or not, of course, it was some time before the two were to become openly engaged. Indeed, it was some time before they were even openly a couple; for both their sakes, the relationship stayed very much in the shadows for many months to come.
Bryan later recalled that he first realised he wanted to marry Kerry when she broke her coccyx that December. Kerry remembered it as a turning point, too. ‘I was due to see the doctors in London and I was really nervous about it as I checked into the hotel,’ she said. ‘As I got there, I could hardly walk. Bryan gave me these pyjamas, which he told me to change into after he’d given me a wash. He put me in bed and covered me up. It was then that we both knew we were meant for each other.’
Despite being in such a serious relationship, however, Bryan and Kerry let it slip out that while they might have briefly dated, by now they were merely good friends. They had no option other than to do so. Both were to reveal later that both sets of record labels were not that delighted at the turn of events, given that both stars were more marketable if they were single, and so they played everything down. Only their very closest family and friends knew what was really going on behind the scenes – that they had actually decided to get married – and it was to be a long time before the engagement became public knowledge.
By April, Atomic Kitten were on tour as the support band for Steps, something that took them to Dublin. But Kerry was keen to scotch any rumours that she and Bryan were back together. ‘Bryan and I are not together and I’ve been far too busy for boys,’ she said firmly. ‘When we were going out, though, I never got any hassle from Westlife fans – they were fantastic and our fans were brilliant as well. I was pretty made up with it actually, but unfortunately he’s busy and I’m busy. We’re still friends, though. I know a few people in Ireland so while I’m here I’ll probably go out and see a few friends, have a few drinks, have some craic as they say in Ireland.’
But it was not impossible to be both the member of a band and to have a relationship, as none other than Kerry’s fellow Atomic Kitten was to prove. In June 2000, Liz became engaged to her childhood sweetheart, a 23-year-old warehouse supervisor called Tom Hibbs, whom she had met when she was just twelve. ‘We’re not going to get married just yet – I think I’m a bit too young for that – but it’s nice to be engaged,’ she said. ‘I have liked him since I was twelve and we were best mates before we started seeing each other. Our relationship is great – I love him so much.’
And on the thorny subject of managing to combine both business and pleasure, she was adamant that it could be done. ‘I laugh when I hear famous people say they can’t have a relationship because they are in showbiz and things are so hectic,’ she said. ‘If you want it to work, it will work. Being in a band hasn’t affected our relationship or how I feel about Tommy. It just means it can get expensive because of all the travelling and the phone calls, but neither of us wants to split.’ So it seemed that a genuinely loving and long-lasting relationship was possible after all.
Kerry at this stage seemed to be in an increasingly playful mood. For a start, she claimed to have a crush on