Shane Lynch

In 1993, music manager Louis Walsh, who had managed Johnny Logan, held auditions in Dublin to find a new boyband to rival British group Take That. Lynch was among the hopefuls present, and was eventually selected.[6] Before even recording any material, he and five other successful auditionees made their infamous appearance on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne. Although their performance was criticised by the Irish press, the band became one of the most successful pop bands in Ireland.[7]

Lynch quickly gained a reputation as the bad boy of the group due to his body piercings, tattoos and violent outbursts which clashed with the band’s clean-cut image.[8][9] In 1999, he attended the MTV Europe Music Awards with the band and broke protocol with his FUBU tracksuit while his bandmates wore co-ordinated suits,[10] and announced to the shocked audience “In the press recently, there’s been a whole load of fucking shite about Boyzone in the year 2000 about breaking up, [but] we are not breaking up.”[11] Later that night, he was involved in a physical brawl with American rapper Puff Daddy. Two years later, at a live concert for Childline, Lynch turned to the camera and yelled: “Tabloid newspapers, you can kiss me fucking arse!