Westlife star Mark Feehily: I never realised I was homophobic – Belfast Telegraph
Westlife star Mark Feehily has revealed that he had therapy to process being gay.
he 41-year-old singer, who came out publicly in 2005, explained that he realised during these sessions he was actually homophobic.
Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s Vinny Hurrell on his When I Was 25 podcast, he said: “I had this guilt. I’m not the type of person to live a lie, yet somehow I found myself in that position.
“I suppose, in the end, the only person that was stopping myself from getting out of this situation was me, but I didn’t know how to do that.
“I have done some therapy. There was a eureka moment where she [the therapist] told me ‘Do you realise that you’re actually homophobic?’
“I was like, ‘What? How dare you. I’m homophobic? I’m gay, how can I be homophobic? This is a joke. I can’t be homophobic. I’m always afraid of all these other people that are homophobic, now I’m homophobic?’ That was a big turning point in my head.
“I was shocked about my own what they call internal homophobia.
“Actually, probably the majority of young gay lads’ biggest enemy is their own opinion of themselves.
“It’s not other people’s opinion, it’s what they think of themselves. I thought ‘that’s the last straw. I’m not homophobic’. If I really wanted to change that, I needed to come out.”
Mark, performing on stage with the other members of Westlife
Mark, who welcomed his first child Layla with his fiance Cailean O’Neill in 2019, also recalled how he told his parents he was gay while driving around Sligo on a Sunday afternoon.
He explained: “I’ve never talked too much about coming out to my mum and dad and stuff like that. We’re kind of quite a reserved family.
“Basically, we always go on Sunday drives — Sunday spins we call them. My fiance is like ‘What is this thing about you getting in the car with your family on Sundays and go for like big drives? I don’t know anybody that does that’, but I know other people that do as well. My grandad used to do it as well, so obviously my mum got it from him
“But we get in the car while maybe the roast was in the oven or whatever and we go off and just go for a spin. It was actually a lovely grounding weekly kind of tradition.
“So it was on one of those Sunday drives where it was just me, my mum and dad. I was driving the car and I think I drove around Sligo about 15 times before I plucked up the courage to actually say what I had to say.
“And anyway, I came out to them that day.”