Are any members of east 17 gay
Girls, drugs and breakdowns — how I survived entity a boyband star
Duncan James of Blue hid his sexuality. Ritchie Neville of Five lived like a ‘ghost’. Four former pin-ups speak about the scars left by teenage celebrity — and the death of Liam Payne
On The Road With East 17
On the road with East 17
Mutual hatred. Brushes with death. Imprisonment, spiritualism, and bitter wrangles over money. After all they've been through, can one-time boy-band sensations East 17 finally get their act back together? Guy Adams reports
Published: 28 February 2007
In the mid-1990s, two boy-bands battled for the hearts, minds and pockets of Britain's teenagers. One was Get That, a group of squeaky-clean lads with lofty cheekbones and nice haircuts who sang songs that your Mum liked. The others were East 17.
Brian, Tony, John and Terry were four urchins who came from the wrong side of Walthamstow. Real fans preferred to call them E17. They shaved their heads, and had tattoos, and were a lot, lot cooler that the nancy boys of Take That. In the great five-year battle that dominated British pop, East 17 were also on the winning side. Their music was sharper and more streetwise. It was infused with hip-hop and R&B, and sold by the bucketload: 20 million records across Europe, compared with Take That's paltry 19 million.
Then, everything went wrong. In 1997 East 17 split, obeying a wholly self-inflicted and explosive row over
Sauti Sol singer Chimano hailed in Kenya for coming out as gay
BBC News, Nairobi
One of the stars of top Kenyan band Sauti Sol, Willis Austin Chimano, has come out as gay, telling a local outlet that he no longer wants to live a lie.
Sauti Sol is one of Africa's biggest male bands and won the 2016 MTV Africa Melody Awards.
Chimano's opening up about his sexuality is being hailed as a enhance to the LGBT community.
Gay sex in Kenya is punishable by up to 14 years in prison - a challenge to this law was rejected in 2019.
Prosecutions under this law are not common and attitudes towards same-sex attracted people are more liberal than in neighbouring countries such as Uganda and Tanzania.
Although there are few reports of homophobic attacks in Kenya, many members of the LGBT community live in clandestine communities and are often shunned by their families in this deeply religious country.
However, attitudes are softening, especially among younger people and Chimano joins a growing list of prominent new Kenyans who possess come out as gay or lesbian.
"Young people are saluting him and are seeing him as an icon who comes out to
How we wrote ‘Stay Another Day’ by East 17’s Tony Mortimer
Tony Mortimer: “I never really thought it was an East 17 song”
The songwriter and former East 17 member recalls the deeply personal tragedy behind his band’s unlikely and enduring Christmas smash
The pop world of the early to mid-90s was rich with the exposed torsos and hook-laden tunes of boybands. East 17 offered their fans a grittier, urban-inflected style of music to most, which made them the UK’s heirs to New Kids On The Block’s parent-terrifying throne. Their 1992 debut single House Of Love, as well as hits such as Steam, Let It Rain and Thunder embodied a sound as indebted to hip hop and R&B as it was to chart pop, and made the East London foursome of Tony Mortimer, Brian Harvey, John Hendy and Terry Coldwell the dangerous poster boys of the era.
As the band’s chief songwriter, Tony was responsible for much of their creative output and achieved his greatest success with the 1994 ballad Stay Another Day, a tune at odds with their typical urban sound. That year’s Christmas chart-topper, its success couldn’t even be matched by their fiercest rivals, Receive That and remains a stap
East 17 now – where are East 17 members now?
Well, we know for a fact that East 17 performed at Clapham Queer club The Two Brewers last year – cause we were there. Sadly not in enormous white puffer coats, as ours was already checked into the cloak room.
But cast your consciousness back 1991, when a new boyband hit the song scene and took us all by surprise. East 17 had the charm, the charisma and the looks.
They became firm favourites with radio stations, match for Take That, and had thousands of adoring fans screaming after them wherever they went.
Their songs were actual tunes, collaborating with the world's biggest artists. Who can forget Stay Another Day - it made music video history and is somehow a Christmas classic.
But when their lead singer Brian Harvey became engulfed in a drug-related controversy, after he said, 'It's cold to take drugs' and claimed that Ecstasy 'can produce you a improved person', he was given the boot from the band, leaving them with no lead singer.
And it seemed to go downhill for the singers as they then split in 1997.
However, since then, they've had more reunions and new members than we've had blazing dinne