Kerry. Emily Herbert
us to become an item. I’m determined to make it happen.’ Hardly pausing for breath, she was then seen out with Dan Corsi, the singer from Northern Line.
Bryan also appeared to be casting around for a new romance, in his case with the pop star Billie Piper, who had recently split from her long-term boyfriend Ritchie Neville. ‘I’ve dated some girls in the pop business and it hasn’t worked out because of my busy schedule,’ he remarked. ‘But I’d definitely like to go out with Billie. She’s a great-looking girl with a nice personality. I’ve got her phone number, so I’ll call her soon. Right now we are good friends. We frequently bump into each other at music events, but if the chemistry was right, I’d like it to be more.’ As an item, Kerry and Bryan seemed to be a thing of the past – until, that is, they were caught kissing at a party.
It can’t have been easy for them, not least because both were now the focus of so much attention. Apart, they made good headline material, but together, as Victoria Adams and David Beckham had already discovered, they were sensational. Both were young and attractive, so they had both – but especially Bryan – quickly become the target for over-enthusiastic fans. Indeed, a story emerged that when Bryan was touring in Florida, he opened his hotel door to find two naked 18-year-old girls sprawled out on the bed waiting for him. Bryan promptly called security.
‘It’s the biggest shock I’ve had so far in Westlife, although it may seem funny to some people,’ he said. ‘At the end of the day, they didn’t mean any harm. I think they just got a bit carried away.’ A spokeswoman for the band confirmed that this is what had happened. ‘He doesn’t know how the girls got in. It must have been quite scary,’ she said. ‘Most hot-blooded men would take longer to call security, but Bryan did the right thing immediately. Westlife have fans throwing themselves at them, so these two girls wouldn’t have interested Bryan. The rest of the lads had a good laugh about it and found it very funny.’
As for the girls themselves, they asked if they could stay, but were escorted from the premises by security. Rather more seriously, they had also been seen going through Bryan’s address book. ‘One of them was leafing through my phone diary and writing down numbers,’ said Bryan. ‘I’ve had to ring loads of people, including Mariah Carey and Ronan Keating, to tell them their phone numbers may have been discovered by the girls.’
There was some ribaldry, in the wake of that, about men who get alarmed by finding naked women in their bedroom, but security was becoming a serious issue for both Westlife and Atomic Kitten. The latter had played at Tranmere Football Club in June and were subjected to an attempted attack. A man pretending to know them had tried to get close to the girls. ‘When we played at Tranmere, this guy was trying to get it on with security, making out he was one of our boyfriends and trying to get backstage,’ said Kerry. ‘He didn’t get in but they gave us a police escort out of the show just in case he did anything. And he was there saying, “I’ll be back.” It was pretty scary – I hope he doesn’t come back.’ Shortly afterwards, it emerged that they were receiving strange letters. ‘We have been getting letters like you see in the movies with the words cut out of newspapers, which is weird,’ Kerry said.
Meanwhile, the Kittens’ star continued to soar in the Far East. By the middle of the year, they had become Japan’s biggest new international act, judged both by their profile and by the sales of their records. But Japan was not alone in its admiration of the girls; their following in the Orient had become so huge that MTV put them at the forefront of MTV Asia’s new campaign, which launched in June. Not content with that, they performed at the MTV Asia Awards alongside Alanis Morissette and Aqua, a performance that was seen by 675 million people.
As Kerry’s fame grew, it was inevitable that there was an increased interest in her past life. She had been quite open about her years in Care, but was rather less pleased when her early foray into topless modelling came to light. Pictures emerged in some of the papers, along with reports about the fact that she’d been a lap-dancer. She took it in fairly good spirit, although refusing, as always, to apologise. Instead, she talked quite openly about her past.
‘I knew one day they would probably get out but, when it came to the crunch, I was really scared about the reaction,’ she said. ‘I’d done them at the age of sixteen for an older male audience. I didn’t know then that I’d be in Atomic Kitten. I didn’t know I would be a role model for young girls and I kept thinking that a kid would look at them and think either, “This is what I should do,” or, “She shouldn’t be doing that, she’s a slut.” But I’m not at all. I was in a few foster homes and by then I was sixteen, living on my own in a flat and somehow I had to get by. I had the bust, I wanted to be famous and that’s how I saw I could do it at that time. And I enjoyed modelling.’
Indeed, she put her background – or the Care part of it, at least – to good use, as Atomic Kitten leant their support to Nickelodeon’s The Big Help, a project that encouraged young people to help others in the community. ‘I spent time with different families in London and Warrington. Now it’s good to be able to give something back,’ she said, and the other Kittens were equally keen. ‘The good thing is everyone can help in some way, even if it’s something small like cleaning your neighbour’s car,’ said Natasha. The Kittens were clearly willing to do their bit.
But there was little time to hang about. By August that year, they had visited Japan – where they remained an absolutely huge success – five times and were now set for a sixth visit, which would be part of a six-week tour of Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand. ‘This is our sixth trip to Japan this year,’ said Natasha. ‘We’ve recorded a version of the Monkees hit ‘Daydream Believer’ for a Japanese film and we’re going to the première.’ They were also beginning to enjoy their new-found wealth. ‘Kerry and I are moving to London soon, so we’ll rent a nice flat,’ Natasha added. ‘And I’d love to buy my mum and dad a house.’
But the work was also taking its toll. Once out in Thailand, all three girls came down with various afflictions, starting with Natasha, who was rushed to the Bumrungrad hospital in Bangkok after contracting bronchitis. The other two girls were forced to play a gig in the city’s CM Squared nightclub without her.
Liz was next. Just before she was due to give an interview with Bangkok’s 95.5 FMX radio station, she developed an acute earache and had to return to her hotel.
Kerry soldiered on, cheerfully telling the presenter that the band might have developed alcohol poisoning after a night in the city’s bars, but she, too, was not at her best and it soon emerged she had the ’flu. Helen Knox, who was managing the band on their tour, was good-natured about it. ‘Kerry’s to blame!’ she said. ‘She’s given us all a bug. But the Kittens will troop on. They’ve been resting and gobbling antibiotics and now we’re off to Taiwan.’
It was an exhausting schedule, however, and one that was bound to take its toll. And then Kerry had an additional burden – she was still keeping the relationship with Bryan a secret, although rumours were beginning to circulate about the real state of affairs. And, of course, she couldn’t spend that much time with her boyfriend. Westlife and Atomic Kitten were both frantically busy just about all the time.
On their return to Britain, though, Kerry was clearly back on form. She was escorted to a pop festival by one mystery admirer, only to spend the rest of the evening with one Bryan McFadden, who also happened to be there. The real nature of their relationship was becoming increasingly clear, not least because, on spotting one another, they then disappeared for a good ten minutes. The chemistry between them was obvious to onlookers, too. It is very difficult to hide really strong feelings about another person and, increasingly, Kerry and Bryan didn’t want to.
Indeed, they were finally ready to tell the truth, that they had actually been a couple for nearly a year, a secret that came out when they were spotted on holiday on the beach together in Gran Canaria. The subsequent pictures made the headlines, and the pop world’s worst-kept secret was finally out – the two 19-year-old stars were an item.
‘Bryan is one of the most important things in my life and we’re so happy together,’ said Kerry, clearly relieved that she could at last tell her news. ‘He makes me laugh