Stephen Gately: 1976 - 2009

Rarely do I ever audibly gasp and/or feel my heart jump when I find out about the death of a celebrity, even one that I really like. But this one came as a particular shock -- our sweet little Stephen Gately, gone before his 34th birthday? I never follow the gossip on actors, singers, etc., so I don't know how much he indulged in alcohol (do we ever really know?), but he was the last of the group that I would ever have expected to see get cut down so abruptly in the prime of his life.

I've always dearly loved Stephen Gately ever since I first happened upon Boyzone. Not only was he the most adorable one of the group, but there was that gorgeous voice of his -- nothing less than a silky smooth slice of heaven. You can only imagine how thrilled I was when I found out that he was releasing his very own solo album ... I snapped it up as soon as I could (which took a bit longer back then, since I wasn't nearly as CD-cyber-shopping-savvy as I am now) and loved it. Maybe Ronan had the more successful solo album -- a fact I've always been a bit resentful of -- but to me, "New Beginning" was leaps and bounds above.

Strictly by measure of his contribution to music, Gately's death may not merit the same notoriety as other recent celebrity passings -- Boyzone were quite big in Ireland and the UK but hardly noticed beyond their shores, and his lone solo album sold decently but not nearly as well as the debut that launched bandmate Keating's ongoing solo career -- but it was something he did, unrelated to music, that made him remarkable ... something that nowadays is nothing special, but ten years ago was more of a statement than even Gately himself was probably aware.

It was ten years ago that Stephen Gately made history by becoming the first teen-pop singer to come out as gay while at the height of his career; boybands in general were more popular than ever, and so were Boyzone in particular. But perhaps most remarkable of all was how it disproved the homophobic way of thinking that until then permeated the music industry; Gately's teenage female fans screamed their devotion to him as loudly as they ever had, instead of abandoning him and the band as the record executives feared would happen. (His coming-out happened after the group's final studio album was released, but it wasn't a contributing factor to their breakup.) So to many people, myself included, Gately was as much a symbol as a singer.

No, he wasn't the first celebrity ever to come out, but he was the first one that targeted the key demographic of teenagers, arguably the biggest spenders of entertainment dollars. But the impact went beyond the business side of things. It's hard to tell for certain how directly Gately's coming-out inspired other young-ish celebrities to follow suit (Mark Feehily and Lance Bass, amongst others), but it's a pretty safe bet that it did. And then there were the countless young male boyband fans ... they'd always been in the audience, but until Stephen Gately came along, the objects of their affections had always been imaginary or hypothetical. Young gay male pop music fans finally had a voice -- and in this case it was a voice as sweet as honey.

One has to remember that the Internet, while firmly in place, wasn't quite as much a part of social interaction in 1999 as it is now, so gay and lesbian youth felt more isolated back then, even though their voices were quickly becoming heard. It's tragically ironic that Gately's death would occur on the eve of National Coming Out Day. At the risk of getting all socio-political on this blog, I'm a firm believer in the fact that no one should have to feel like any less of a person for being who they are (especially when all it amounts to is loving people of the same gender), nor should people who think otherwise get away with perpetuating such self-loathing. Stephen Gately played a pivotal role in helping to change that, even if he was reluctant to or unaware of doing so.

Lots of love, Steo ... I'll miss you.