Jodi/Kevin/Kian/ Mark/Nicky/Westlife
Out Now
Westlife: X Perfume
Set: 50ml EDP Spray, 100ml Shower Gel, 100ml Body Lotion.
Album
Where We Are: Amazon/HMV/Play
DVD
10 Years Of Westlife: Live At Croke Park. Amazon/HMW/Play
Singles
What About Now: HMV
Books
Westlife: Our Story 2009 (Includes Croke Park): Amazon/Play
Westlife: Our Story 2008: Amazon/Play |
Site Updates
01 July 2010: There will be no site updates from tomorrow for a week as I will be away. It means I won’t be here on Shane’s birthday so also wanted to wish him a happy birthday for Monday. Hope he has an amazing day with his friends and family. Love Shazzy xxx
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Westlife's Shane lives the high life in Surrey
29 June 2010: Westlife crooner Shane Filan, 30, and his wife Gillian are enjoying life in their new Surrey bolthole - a Georgian house in Cobham which is set in half an acre.
'It's private and we have great neighbours. We plan to spend half the year here and half in Ireland,' says Shane, who also owns a mock Tudor mansion in Carraroe, Co. Sligo.
Shane is already familiar with the area as he takes his children Nicole Rose, five, Patrick Michael, one, and six-month-old Shane Peter to nearby Chessington World of Adventures, and he enjoys playing golf at Wentworth.
Shane and brother Finbarr are spearheading a luxury housing development in Sligo where they hope to build 63 apartments.
| Source: dailymail.co.uk
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| Support Announced For Cawdor Castle Gig |
28 June 2010: WESTLIFE'S Cawdor Castle gig will now also feature X-Factor 2006 finalists The MacDonald Brothers plus girl band Wonderland – which features Westlife member's Kian's wife Jodi.
CK Events have just announced the two support acts for the August 28 event - both regular supports for the Irish band.
Fans are also in for a double helping of Highland favourites Craig and Brian MacDonald as the duo will also be appearing with the Stars From The X-Factor show the day before Westlife's Cawdor concert.
Wonderland are the latest addition to Louis Walsh's management roster. Former Hollyoaks regular Jodi Albert – who married Westlife's Kian Egan last May – appears with Sharon Condon, Corrina Durran, Leigh Learmont and Kasey Smith.
The girls were chosen from over 700 hopefuls at an audition in Dublin in 2008, and are due to release their debut album later this year.
CK Events director Kenny Cameron said, "The addition of The MacDonald Brothers and Wonderland ensure that the Westlife concert will be a great day out for all the family. The gates are open at 5pm and we would encourage ticket holders to get through to Cawdor early so that they can enjoy the full show."
He added, "We have been getting a lot of enquiries through our website asking about who would be supporting Westlife, and we are delighted to confirm these acts.
"There are still a few tickets available for the concert, but we have been amazed at how quickly they have been selling."
Westlife, supported by Wonderland and The MacDonald Brothers, are performing at the historic venue of Cawdor Castle on Saturday 28th August. Limited tickets, priced at £42.50, are available at www.ticketmaster.co.uk or telephone 08444 99 99 90.
| Source: highland-news.co.uk
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| Win Tickets To Meet Westlife |
26 June 2010: CGA Ladies Day and Party in the Paddock featuring Westlife on Saturday 14 August is set to be our biggest and best concert night yet!
Not only are Irish pop sensations Westlife coming to Newbury Racecourse, but we're also giving one lucky person the chance to win tickets to meet them before they perform live on stage after racing.
The popular combination of Ladies Day, racing and a live concert makes this the highlight of Newbury's summer season and we're giving you the chance to get even closer to the action with the following great prize:
- Two Premier entry tickets and a Premier Car Park label - Two passes to meet Westlife prior to the concert - Opportunity to get the band's signatures and have your photo taken with them - Two tickets to the Ladies Day After Party at the Hula Bar & Grill
With fantastic vocals and a well known repertoire of hit records, our final Party of the Paddock of 2010 promises to be a great day so enter now for your chance to win!
Q: Where are the members of Westlife from?
To enter the competition then please click here.
| Source: newbury-racecourse.co.uk
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| Where We Are: So Far
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23 June 2010: Westlife fans! We asked you for your favourite songs of the ‘Where We Are Tour’ so far. We’ve had loads of great replies, and here is a very small selection! Enjoy!
DedicatedToWestlife
"I’ve Got a Feeling" was brilliant as it brought the crowd together and everyone in the arena just enjoyed themselves. Can’t wait for next year, take care x
Shazzy Filan
This tour is the best one yet... Saw the opening night in Belfast and was speechless when “Halo” came on - my all time fave single... not to mention, “Sex Is On Fire”. x
Sally Courtney
It has to be “Where We Are”. Such a great song and an amazing opening to the best concert ever! x
Alisha Callaghan
“I'll See You Again” in Croke Park was sensational and a beautiful tribute to the late Nicky Byrne and Kevin Egan. It brought a tear to my eye. That whole show in Croker was out of this world. I was very proud of ye that night and very proud to be Irish. :) x x x x
Aine Boyle
My favourite was when you did your old songs like “Uptown Girl” and “I'm Already There” but my all-time favourite is “When You're Looking Like That” because it always gets the crowd going and I love it!!
Ele Lakin
Loved the whole show, but “I’ve Got a Feeling” was just amazing. I'll always remember rocking out with my niece to that one.
Lisa Swift
I know its a classic but “Swear It Again” is one of my all time favourites and I love to hear it on tour, while I really enjoyed the mix up of cover songs too!! Pure talent!! X
Hazel Whiteland
I have to say, "Flying without Wings". I got married at the end of March and this was our first dance song and it was really emotional when you sung it on the tour!
Sofi Lubschik
The whole concert was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. My favourite song was “What Makes A Man”, it was the best moment in my life.
| Source: westlife.com
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| Georgina’s Photoshoot |
16 June 2010: Thanks to Mary at WFVIP for scanning the pictures from Georgina’s photoshoot.
| Source Independent.ie. Credits: Mary @ WFVIP
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| Shane Blog |
15 June 2010: Hi Guys,
Just a note to say how delighted we are with the tour so far . It's been our most enjoyable tour by far and we feel you enjoyed it in a big way too!! We can't wait now for the summer shows and of course our show in Sligo on 29th of July . That is going to be a very special night for us!
Also thank you to everyone who supported soccer aid this year . It was a massive success for UNICEF and we were so chuffed to be involved and of course it was great to beat England ! Third time lucky I suppose .. But on the night I think we deserved the win.
It was amazing to play at Old Trafford and even more amazing to play with all the soccer legends! Myself and Nicky really enjoyed it and made a lot of new friends... Bring on 2012!!!
See you all soon guys,
Love Always,
Shane
| Source: westlife.com
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| Kian Is Pants At Marriage |
15 June 2010 [Published 13 June 2010]: Jodi Albert, who is married to Westlife's KIAN EGAN, performed with her new girlband Wonderland - and later told me she's not worried about her hubby joining the list of love cheat boy-band singers.
"We got together six years before we married so we knew each other fully. It's mad some people get married after just six months," she tells me.
But don't expect to see a stork dropping by the Egan household anytime soon.
Jodi says; "He'll be a great dad one day, but there's no baby on the horizon as Kian is a handful enough. I'm still training him to pick his pants off the floor!"
| Source: Sunday Mirror/Dean Piper. Credits: KianEganRocks
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| Filan Forever on Facebook |
15 June 2010: I have now set up a Facebook page for the site. I will also be adding groups to join over the next few days. To follow then click here.
A big thanks to everyone who has supported the site. ;o)
| Shazzy x
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| Kian Serenades His Wife |
14 June 2010: Kian Egan really knows how to woo his woman.
We saw the Westlife crooner serenading his wife, Jodi Albert, with a rendition of Smack My Bitch Up by the Prodigy as he let her get the drinks in the Hard Rock VIP tent.
Now that is one cover we'd love the Westlife boys to do.
| Source: mirror.co.uk
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| Win Tickets To See Westlife |
14 June 2010: If you're a fan of Westlife, then you could see them live at Sandown Park Racecourse this summer courtesy of The Sunday Mirror.
We've got 2 pairs of premier tickets to give away with entry to the racecourse and concert PLUS you'll get the chance to meet all of Westlife in person!
They'll be performing live after racing on Thursday, August 5, with all the hits from their latest album, Where We Are
To book tickets call 01372 47 00 47 or visit www.sandown.co.uk. Groups of 12 or more adults get 20% off admission price.
HOW TO ENTER - Correctly answer this question for a chance to win:
Who was once the fifth member of the band?
a) Brian McFadden
b) Ronan Keating
c) Shane Lynch
To enter online, you will need to open an account and register with click&buy to pay for online entry to the competition. You simply register once and then you can use your unique username and password to pay for all future The Sunday Mirror competition entries. Your click&buy account can be settled later using direct debit, debit cards, credit cards or your BT phone bill. Please read the click&buy terms and conditions before opening an account.
For another chance to win: CALL 0901 609 2906
or
TEXT PIPER followed by a space and then your answer (a,b or c), name and address to 84080
| Source: mirror.co.uk
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| The Good Wife |
13 June 2010: Apart from this one, Georgina Ahern doesn't give interviews and largely keeps her distance from the celebrity world inhabited by her husband, Westlife's Nicky Byrne. This is just one of the things, says Liadan Hynes, that may explain why Nicky and Georgina are regarded as one of the happiest couples in showbiz. Of course, having Bertie Ahern around to play with worms and spiders with the kids probably helps, too.
'I remember seeing him when we started school and going 'Oh! There is this really good-looking, hot, blond guy, but he'll never look at me.' You know, quiet little girl."
Georgina Ahern is recalling the first time she spotted her husband, Nicky Byrne, or Nicko as she refers to him, the blond heart-throb of the Westlife line-up. They were 12 and starting secondary school in Baldoyle.
As it happens, the feeling was mutual. "From the beginning," she says, "he remembers seeing me as well. Like, staring across the classrooms." Business class, Nicky adds later, when he turns up at our shoot.
”It's funny; when he first asked me, he asked through someone who lived in the area. I was walking home on my own, on the way to the bus or something, and this guy said, 'Oh, you know, Nicko Byrne wants to, you know, will you . . .'" She trails off, smiling softly at the memory of 15-year-old inarticulacy.
”I was like, 'Oh, no,''' she shakes her head in refusal, "thinking I was just being taken the piss out of, because I thought he was like, wow!" she gasps in awed tones, laughing.
Luckily, despite the initial rebuff, Nicky tried again a few months later.
"He asked again through a mutual friend, who I used to sit beside in school. I knew she wasn't joking. So I was, like, 'Yeah, OK, definitely,' and they organised that we meet in one of his friends' houses. It's all just very sweet and innocent really," Georgina says, but even now looks a little starry-eyed at the memory.
Sixteen years later, with two adorable three-year-old twin boys, a Hello-sponsored wedding at the age of 24, and a career that requires that Nicky travels constantly, the marriage is clearly stronger than ever, deserving of its reputation as one of the most unswervingly solid in showbiz.
Just two days after our shoot comes the shock announcement that the Keating marriage has foundered amid accusations of infidelity. On paper, the two couples are carbon copies. Both married and had children young and both women gave up a career to create a home and rear their family. Ronan actually sang at Georgina and Nicky's wedding. And the couples live in the same gated community, Abingdon, in Malahide.
I speak to Georgina again the day after the revelations; she's in Cardiff with Westlife. I ask her what is the key to the success and strength of her own marriage. She seems a bit embarrassed. As a self-confessed non-celebrity, and rare giver of interviews, Georgina hasn't acquired the habit of easy self-reflection, of blithely talking of oneself in the third person, that comes with fame. Nor has she worked up her life story into a neat little history, complete with amusing anecdotes, to be trotted out regularly in various profile-building endeavours.
But it's more than that.
Gushing professions of love and warbling descriptions of one's other half as a rock, saviour and reason to get out of bed in the morning, are not Georgina and Nicky's style. And they're utterly more convincing as a couple for it.
"Hmm . . .'' She bursts out laughing, a little self-consciously stumped at the request to analyse her own marriage
"I think that, like anything in life, you just have to work at it," Georgina answers. "But when something's important to you, and you're happy in it, it makes it very easy to work at. You just have to make time for each other. Special time. And I suppose just kind of appreciate each other."
Does she find it hard to deal with the female attention that Nicky attracts?
"It's funny, like, we never really questioned that, we were that close and kinda strong. Like obviously, normal girlie jealous, that can come into anybody's life. But not to the point that it overrules life.
"Because I've known him all my life," she continues, "and we're that close, it doesn't really bother me. And I've grown up with him. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there's times when I'm thinking, 'OK, that might be a little bit more difficult.' You know, when we were younger and getting used to the whole thing."
Georgina hasn't done many interviews and she is understandably nervous. The day we meet, she's wearing skinny denims, hardly any make-up and has perfect skin. With her perfectly proportioned figure and lean, toned limbs, she could easily be a model. In pictures, it's the huge blue eyes you notice first; in person, it's her voice. It's soft, never raised, and has a sort of melodic quality. It's kind of like meeting Bambi.
She is friendly and polite to everyone, and endlessly accommodating with whatever hair, make-up and styling demands we make of her.
As the elder daughter of former Fianna Fail leader, minister and taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Georgina had an easy route to notoriety, if not fame, had she wanted it, before Nicky Byrne ever came on the scene. But to her, like her husband's ambitions for a football and then a musical career, her father's very public career was "kind of just normal; it was just what he did."
"I didn't really know any different, in a sense," she says of growing up with Bertie as a dad.
Despite their separation in the mid- Eighties, Georgina's parents made sure she and her sister Cecelia had an upbringing that was couched in love and support.
"My parents were always very encouraging. So, no matter how good or bad at something you are, they're always very positive," she says. "They always gave us that positive feeling that we can do something, no matter what. My mom was always a stay-at-home mom, and she was always there for us. And I really appreciate that, having her around all the time. And really, I mean, I know my dad worked very hard and he may not have been, like, always there by my side, but he was always there for me, 100 per cent."
Unlike many in her situation, Georgina - or G, as her husband and friends refer to her - has never capitalised on her marriage to become a professional "wife of". Apart from events for her mother's charity, Cari, she rarely indulges in the various launches, style awards and fashion shows that make up the usual social circuit of the pop star's wife. She has never released a memoir, written a celebrity diary, designed clothes or fronted a make-up line, and you're unlikely to see her bringing out a fitness video or popping up in a reality-TV show.
She has a few friends within the industry -- "A few, but not so many. I'd have, like, one or two." Shane Filan's wife Gillian, of course, and she and Nicky are good friends with Shay and Jane Given.
Is it important to her to have a world separate from the celebrity world of her husband's work life? "Yeah, I think so; I like that. Because I'm not in it myself either, you know. And we do have acquaintances, don't get me wrong, that we have met through that and it's fantastic. But yeah, it's nice just to have your own friends away from that," she smiles, and adds, "just doing normal stuff."
From the beginning, it was obvious that theirs wasn't your average teenage relationship.
"It's funny, even back then his mom always treated us nearly like we were a married couple," Georgina tells me, referring to their school days of their early romance. "She'd have lunch ready for me."
A year into the relationship, Nicky went to England to pursue his dream of becoming a professional footballer.
"We just decided, well, we don't wanna break up, so we'll just make it work. So my mom would bring me over," she smiles at the memory.
"And he made surprise visits home all the time. So I suppose it was always exciting and kinda special. There's just a special bond. And I suppose when we had to have a bit of time apart it made it even more special."
Can Georgina remember any of their early dates?
"D'you know what? Compared to most people his age he's always been very mature, very romantic. If he got, like, a day or two off
there would always be a surprise. I'd walk in from school and he'd be sitting on my bed with flowers and chocolates."
Nicky drops in on the photo shoot mid-morning; he's enjoying a few days off from Westlife's current British tour, and is clearly keen to hang out in his wife's company. He's obviously happy to see her at the centre of attention, and proudly takes pictures on his phone.
"I am naturally shy and reserved. Obviously, I've got better through the years," she laughs. "We're opposites in that way, which I like. He is quite charismatic and that's why I do like him and his dancing, and he's quite, like, sexy on stage. For me, the way he is so funny and outgoing and at ease with so many things, I love that relaxed nature."
After two years of playing football in England, Nicky's contract was not renewed and he decided to come home.
"He didn't sit around for long. Him and his dad set up the karaoke band," says Georgina. "He went back and did his Leaving, and I was in college, so it kind of worked."
Within a year or so of his return, Nicky had successfully auditioned for Westlife.
Did she know from the start that the band would change everything?
"Not really, because he was always going to be a footballer," she smiles fondly; fame was clearly always an accepted part of the Nicky package.
"I went in to do a business degree, nothing very interesting; it was just a business management course basically, out in Tallaght. I suppose we still managed, even though we were young, to do our respective things of the moment," she muses.
"It really took off very quickly," she continues, recalling Westlife's instant success. "I remember my first set of exams; he was filming on a beach in Tenerife for videos."
Being together was always the priority. "Every time I was finished something, I was like, 'Right, I just wanna go with him now, I'm free," she laughs. "So I kind of dedicated a lot of my time to doing that."
Was it difficult to maintain a relationship, with one person travelling the world and the other at home in college?
"It was hard because obviously those three years he was kind of everywhere. But I didn't work at the same time I was in college, I was lucky in a way that I had college, worked really hard at it, and then I could go see him as well.
"I knew that it was worth . . ." she trails off. The 16 years together and the rock-solid relationship speak for themselves.
After college, Georgina split her time between working in Dublin and travelling to wherever Nicky was.
"I worked at home for about two years. I actually got a job that was like three days," she laughs, a little sheepishly, "so that I could go to him. That was ideal, that I was able to finish college, have a little something, and then, you know, go. Because I was determined, you know, to have something. And then travel Thursday, Friday, to the bitter end; like, literally sometimes coming home on Tuesday morning at five o clock."
What did she work at?
"Because I did business management it was just getting experience in recruitment. Nothing major, but it was fun, and it was great to kind of just be doing something".
Was the constant upheaval difficult?
"If that's how I have to see him, you're just gonna go with it, aren't you? You're just going to make it work, you know? If I didn't want to see him, I wouldn't have made that much effort. And likewise with him."
They bought their first house when they were around 22. "But we were never really in it, either, cause we were always away travelling together. And then we got our house in Malahide. And that Christmas he proposed to me. So I was only 23."
Did he ask her father's permission beforehand?
"Christmas Eve, I always meet my dad. So he'd asked my mom first I think, on the phone or something. And then he came out to where my dad was, and asked him."
They got married the following August, and Georgina hit the road, travelling with the band full-time.
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