February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Eileen Murphy
If you haven’t already had it up to here (place your hand horizontally in front of your nose, there’s a love) with former Boyzone frontman Ronan Keating, keep reading. If you’ve had enough, please amuse yourselves by drawing horns and a fake mustache on the picture we’ve thoughtfully provided until we’ve finished. This is a story that just will not hold.
The squeaky-clean singer is trying to change his image a bit, now that he’s a solo act. His upcoming autobiography, "Life is a Rollercoaster," provides shocking revelations about the diminutive warbler, including:
Underage drinking! (Yawn.)
Cutting school! (What time is it?)
Misbehaving in school! (Are you finishing those french fries?)
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Joyriding in the family car! (Anybody see the cap for our pen?)
Boyzone hijinks! (Is that the doorbell?)
"Doing a bunk" out a hotel window! (Is "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" on yet?)
Well, you get the idea.
Along the way, we also find out that Ronan stood up to the school bully when his family moved from Dublin to Meath, and that the ensuing fight got him briefly suspended from school.
And later, when he and the other Boyz were fledgling pop stars, they discovered that they didn’t have enough money to pay their phone bill after a London hotel stay. They threw their luggage out of the hotel window and shimmied down the drainpipe to make their escape. Somewhere in Blighty, there’s probably still one very ticked-off hotel manager. We hope that Ro sends him a copy of the book to make up for his trouble.
Love will keep’em together
Sorry, ladies: the Lord of the Dance is taken. Again. So keep those bare-chested, leather trouser fantasies to yourselves, O.K.?
The Sunday World reports that Flatley and his curvy ex-girlfriend Lisa Murphy are again making bee-you-tee-ful music together. The pair met up again after Michael’s triumphant final performance in his "Feet of Flames" extravaganza in Belfast. The pair jetted off to Michael’s luxury home in Monte Carlo, where they’ve been busy getting reacquainted. She plans to join him on the set of his autobiographical movie, "Feet of Flames," which begins shooting this week in Dublin.
Speaking of "FOF," we wonder if there’s any truth to the rumor that actress Minnie Driver is lobbying to play Michael’s on-screen love interest? We’ll bet Lisa won’t fancy that kind of competition, even though Minnie’s engaged to marry actor Josh Brolin . . .
Oasis of calm?
We’re sure that you were as worried as we were about the love life of laddish lager lout Liam Gallagher of Oasis (how’s that for alliteration?). Well, you’ll be happy to know that the singer is dating grunge goddess Courtney Love, lead singer of that delicately named band, Hole. The couple can have a lash at consoling Liam’s big brother, Noel, who recently split with his wife, Meg.
Make his day
Clint Eastwood may walk with kings — the Hollywood type, anyway — but he certainly hasn’t lost the common touch, as he proved last week during a flying visit to Ireland.
The actor, who can give Sean Connery and Paul Newman a run for their money in the ‘Sexy Senior Stars’ stakes (yes, this is our week for alliteration; wanna make something of it, punk?) was a guest at the swanky K Club last week. But when Clint had a hankering for some Irish-style pizza, he took the wife and child, plus a ten-person entourage, to the Ballymore Inn in County Wicklow.
And Clint didn’t even need to wave a .357 Magnum to score a table at the fully-booked eatery last Friday night. The manager, Barry O’Sullivan, was only too thrilled to accommodate the "Space Cowboys" star.
"We only got advance warning of about an hour or so," he explained. "We had to squeeze a few tables together, but other people didn’t mind waiting a few minutes." Hey, who’s gonna argue with Dirty Harry?
Ready for his close-up
Contrary to internet gossip, U2 singer/world hunger activist Bono will not be appearing in the upcoming Boyzone movie playing Boyz manager Louis Walsh or anyone else.
"Stephen Gately has been quoted as saying that on the net, but . . . it isn’t the case," a U2 spokesperson told Hot Press.
That doesn’t mean that our favorite rock god won’t be clocking some screen time, however. The singer can be seen in a seven minute short film called, appropriately enough, "Sightings of Bono."
The piece was written by Paul McGuinness’s wife, Kathy Gilfillan, and the plot concerns a Bono-mad fan who finally gets to meet her idol when he pops into the shop where she works. Sigh . . . why is it that pop stars don’t wander into newspaper offices?
Anyway, you can see the film on the internet by going to www.allirelandnow.com.