Boyzone's Keith Duffy speaks about his work with autism ahead of the band's Liverpool gig

29th May 2009

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-entertainment/echo-entertainment/2009/05/29/boyzone-s-keith-duffy-speaks-about-his-work-with-autism-ahead-of-the-band-s-liverpool-gig-100252-23738995/

BOYZONE’S Keith Duffy promises the band will be all man when they appear in front of their ever-loyal army of fans next month. He and his four bandmates – Ronan Keating, Shane Lynch, Stephen Gately and Mikey Graham – have been honing their bodies.

“It’s absolutely the kind of band we are, let’s be honest,” laughs Keith, 34. “We might look old but we’re a boy band. Our audience like to look at something that is pleasing to the eye. So we’ve got to get out there and get ourselves ripped up.”

He’s cut down drastically on the beer and has been hitting the gym five days a week, while bandmate Ronan famously took on Kilimanjaro recently with an army of other celebrities in aid of Comic Relief.

“Once I cut the beer out – I never cut the wine out – the six-pack will be back,” he announces confidently. “In fact it’s already there – there’s just a keg in the way at the moment.”

It may be more than a decade since their heyday, but Boyzone’s phenomenal success lingers on, and they opened the door for their successors, Westlife.

Put together in 1993 by Louis Walsh, the clean cut, tightly managed Boyzone had UK number one singles and sales approaching 20 million records.

When they split in 2000 discipline, for Keith at least, went out of the window. Casting round to fill the void, he embarked on a Smash Hits tour with Shane Lynch.

“We were absolutely obnoxious a**holes,” he declares. “We went on the Smash Hits tour and we bullied other acts like A1 and all these other bands that were coming through the pipes. Me and Shane thought we were kind of like the granddaddies of pop because we’d been through it with Boyzone.

“We were having a pint of beer with our breakfast at 10am, we weren’t training at the gym, we were bloated and fat and we were eating fry-ups. I definitely went off the rails for a while. We were just rebelling against everything we had to do in Boyzone.

He reflects: “Looking back on those times, I was a bit lost and I was trying to prove to people I used to be somebody. Because we suddenly didn’t have the profile of Boyzone.”

The plunge from the public eye was dramatic.

“When your profile starts to drop, restaurants, nightclubs, you don’t get the invitations any more,” he reflects. “People just aren’t as nice to you. You realise how fickle the business is, and how people only want you when you’re on top of the world.”

Then Celebrity Big Brother came knocking. For most celebrities who have checked into the infamous house, it’s proved a mixed blessing.
For Keith it was different.

“Up until that point people knew Ronan and Stephen very well,” he explains, “but they only knew of me as the big one at the back or the one with the broken teeth, as I was referred to many times.

“It did me absolutely no harm whatsoever.”

Shortly after he was offered a part on Coronation Street where he stayed for three years. He’s just finished a part on Ireland’s most popular soap, Fair City.

But behind the scenes his life hasn’t been such a breeze.

At the age of two his beloved daughter Mia was diagnosed with severe autism. Keith admits he found it hard to deal with.

“Mia didn’t speak until she was five,” he says. “She hid under her bed. She constantly had her hands over her ears because everything would scare her and would only go outside with a blanket over her head. She had minimum affection with her brother and with myself and my wife.

“It was kind of heartbreaking at the time,” he adds softly. “I couldn’t deal with the problem at hand and the only way to get through it was to use my profile to make a difference.”

After lengthy and intensive therapy she started speaking and from there she has flourished. She’s now nine and in her second year of a mainstream school.

Meanwhile Keith has been to schools and universities and appeared on TV shows to raise awareness of the condition. He’s opened 13 schools offering autism provision and also an early diagnosis centre.

“You can give these kids the opportunity to work to the best of their ability, but unless they get the right diagnosis early on you’ll never know what that is.”