Ronan Keating: ‘I decided to marry somebody I hadn’t known for that long’

Ronan Keating is a singer, best known for being part of 1990s band Boyzone. Here, the 47-year-old shares how his mother’s death devastated him, his shocking first kiss and how he met his now-wife working in Australia.

I wasn’t drawn to any serious relationships until I lost Mum; that’s when I tried to replace that mother figure in my life.

My maternal nanny was very close to my mum [Marie]. I have vivid memories of them drinking cups of tea at the kitchen table inside her small house in Dublin. She was a homemaker and my grandpa worked as a police sergeant.

My paternal grandmother had 10 children and raised my dad [Gerry] on a dairy farming community in Killinkere, County Cavan, Ireland. She would wake him at 4am before school to get him to milk the cows. I never got to meet her.

My mum and I were very close. I am the youngest of five, and when all my siblings left the family home, I was there with Mum a lot. She died aged 51 from breast cancer in 1998 when I was 20. That was the most devastating thing that ever happened to me.

Mum was very supportive of my decision to answer an advert in the newspaper to audition for Boyzone. I don’t think she really knew what it all meant. She was very religious and for a while feared I had joined some religious cult! It wasn’t until we released our first single, and it was a hit that she realised what I was actually doing. Mum made sure I always came back home after tours, and provided a good grounding for me in those early days.

My sister, Linda, who is 11 years older than me, moved back to Dublin from New York – where she lived and ran restaurants – to help Mum when she got sick. As the only daughter, she dropped everything to help Mum. The night before Mum died, Linda and I had tough discussions about what would happen next. It wasn’t easy. Linda has always been a mother figure in my life.

Girls didn’t notice me at school. I spent my youth as a sprinter and athlete. I was the Irish under-13s 200 metres champion. I tried with the girls, but I made all the wrong moves as a young lad.

I had my first kiss at a cousin’s birthday party when I was 13. All of a sudden, a friend of hers struck me with her tongue inside my mouth. It frightened me and I ran home to Mum.

My publicist, Sam Wright, was influential in my career. We built a strong bond when she worked at Polydor Records, and then when she started her own PR business, Seesaw. She has been a constant in my life when it comes to booking TV spots and for advice about public appearances.

I wasn’t drawn to any serious relationships until I lost Mum; that’s when I tried to replace that mother figure in my life. I decided to marry right off the back of her death, to somebody I hadn’t known for that long. It was a knee-jerk reaction as I tried to find stability.

I have three beautiful, older children [Jack, 25, Missy, 23, and Ali, 19], who are my world, but I am no longer together with their mum [Keating married model Yvonne Connolly in 1998; they split in 2010 and were divorced in 2015]. Yvonne and I grew apart, then realised it wasn’t helping anybody being together.

I was in Australia working on The X Factor when I met the show’s producer, Storm. I saw her for the first time on a plane when the team was travelling from Sydney to Melbourne for an audition stage of the show. I didn’t know who she was, but I walked past her in the aisle as she was reading the newspaper, and I thought, “Oh no, I am in trouble here.” Storm taught me to laugh at myself; it’s something I have only gotten better at in the last 10 years. We married in 2015.

I am drawn to Storm’s family values. She brings everything I have craved and wanted in a family. She is the director of our company, and has just built our family home in London – from the architecture design to the interiors. She’s a total powerhouse.

I always said I wouldn’t marry again after doing it once, but when I met Storm, I didn’t think twice. We have a son, Cooper, 7, and daughter, Coco, 4.

My two older daughters, Missy and Ali, are incredibly manipulative when they want to be, but I see their beauty, relentlessness and softness. Sometimes they have their struggles, and other times, they’re in a good place. I always ask Storm for advice when I hit walls or don’t understand something about them. I love having great women in my life.

Ronan Keating will be performing at Crown Oaks Day on November 7 at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse.

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