Interviews - I WAS A KID.. I'D LOST MY MOTHER TO CANCER AND IT WAS THE HARDEST THING I EVER HAD TO GO THROUGH

EXCLUSIVE RONAN KEATING: HOW HE FACED HEARTACHE

Sunday Mirror - March 27th 2005

Ronan admits that he turned to booze after the death of his mother Marie from breast cancer

SINGER Ronan Keating has confessed he sank into a booze hell as he mourned the death of his beloved mother.  And the star told how his drinking was so bad at one point he collapsed behind the scenes during a Boyzone tour.

Ronan's heavy drinking and breakdown was kept well hidden from the band's thousands of adoring fans as he sought comfort in the bottom of a glass to ease the pain of his mother Marie's death from breast cancer.

Ronan said: "I went straight back into work shortly after my mum died in 1998.  I guess it was the wrong thing to do because I guess I just crashed. I started drinking heavily and I broke down one day in London while I was working.  I was doing interviews in a hotel and I broke down - I just couldn't handle it."

His mother's death also led to Ronan's bitter split with his dad Gerry but now he and his father have healed the rift between them at the time of Marie's death.

Ronan, 28, admitted: "I went off the rails a little bit.  My dad and I didn't see eye to eye for a while there - we drifted apart, very much so.  But now, thank God, we are back together again and everything is fine.  I was a kid - I'd lost my mother and it was the hardest thing I ever had to go through in my life so these things happen."

Ronan has never been reluctant to talk about his relationship with booze - his love of Jack Daniels has got him into a number of scrapes in the past.

"I love chocolate and I love Jack Daniel's - in any order," he said. "I like going out with my mates and having a pint down my local.  I like having a good time."

But last year the star got involved in two fights - one in an Irish bar in New York and the other in a chip shop near his home in north Dublin.

"It doesn't happen very often, but once in a while someone with a bit of drink in them will start mouthing off," he said.  Most of the time it's not worth bothering about, but every now and again you think, 'Hang on a minute, I'm not having that'.  I don't think I'm any different from the next man in that sense."

Ronan said his relationship with his wife Yvonne was one of the things that helped him through his darkest days.

AND the fact that the pair were close friends before they became a couple - they married shortly after Marie's death - meant that their relationship had strong foundations.

The couple have two youngsters - Jack and Marie - and are expecting a third child in the summer.

Ronan said: "Before anything else we got on really well - we were soul mates before there had to be anything sexual or anything else involved.  It was just a friendship and that was everything to me."

And he said that setting up the Marie Keating Foundation to fight breast cancer both helped and hindered him come to terms with his mother's death.

He said: "It gave us something else to think about but at the same time it also brought up a lot of pain I guess, because you are talking to doctors again, and specialists finding out what you can do.  And then you find out all these things that mam could have done.

"So although it helps you cope it also brings up all those memories."

Ronan wholeheartedly believes that his mum would still be alive today if she had known more about her condition and feels the Marie Keating Foundation goes some way towards helping educate others in his mum's situation.

"Our goal was to make people more aware, to educate people because we believe that if mam had been more educated then she'd be alive today.  Because she didn't know anything about breast cancer - she was very naive as we all were."

Ronan said his pop career was exactly like his song Life Is A Rollercoaster in that it was full of ups and downs, highs and lows.

HE admitted that 2003 had been his most difficult year as a solo artist but said 2004 had been one of the best.

He said: "I brought an album out that didn't go Top 10 and I thought: 'Oh s**t, my career is over'.   But I think these things are there to test you - it's made me work harder and made me understand I've got to make records for the people I have always made records for.  I've got to remember who buys my records and who my fans already are.  It's my song, I know, but life is a rollercoaster that goes up and down.  I mean, 2003 was probably the worst year I have had in my career and then 2004 was the best - I have never sold as many records or had a tour as big - it's been magic.  And it's very exciting because I think people still want to listen to my songs and they still want me around."

Ronan also hinted that he will be trying his luck again in the States after the success of his duet with Leanne Rimes.

He said: "We share the same audience here and I think we could do the same over there - the pop country world."

But although he will be performing in a huge country concert in September, he said he has no intentions of ditching his fashion sense.

He said: "I'm not about to wear a pair of cowboy boots and a big Stetson."

Ronan's career as a singer is a far cry from his teenage ambitions of being a garda.  As a 16-year-old Ronan was intent on walking the beat - before he joined the queue for the Boyzone auditions.

He said: "I thought I was going to be a policeman for a while.  I had the forms and everything for the Garda Siochana.  But at that time I was in a band too - you dream of being in a successful band but you never think that it's going to happen."

Ronan's frank interview on Day Out With Daly can be seen on BBC1 Northern Ireland, Tuesday, 10.35pm.