Before I start I would like to clarify.  It is tragic that Stephen Gateley died so young.  It is always tragic when a young person dies.  It is tragic for him,  his partner, his family, his friends and last of all his fans.  In that descending order.

For everyone else it wasn’t tragic.  It didn't change your life one bit.  Yet the media coverage suggested otherwise.  The funeral coverage took up six pages in The Sunday Mirror, The News of The World Five.  One columnist, I can’t remember who, told us how Stephen Gateley was unique because he was the first member of a boy band to announce he was gay, changing attitudes forever.  Nonsense.

He was the latest in a line of famous pop stars to announce he was gay, with many of his predecessors being more famous and more talented.  A line running from Elton John to Freddie Mercury to George Michael, Stephen Gateley's coming out would have barely registered.  The fact that he was in a boy-band is clutching at straws.  But then agin if your editor comes calling and asking you to tap in to the nation’s collective grief – which they instigated, then I suppose she can’t really be blamed for trying.

In reality Stephen Gateley didn’t change anything.  He was the second most famous member of a boy band and by all accounts a decent and ordinary bloke.  It is as if that’s not enough.  He has to be elevated into something he wasn't.

Then, trampling through this gratuitous eulogising comes The Daily Mail’s Jan Moir, suggesting that he’s not such a decent bloke and that his gay lifestyle was to blame for his untimely death.  Cue top-tweeter Stephen Fry, and others, urged people to complain and subsequently it was reported that the press complaints commission received over 21,000 complaints against Moir… the greatest number ever!

Rest in peace Stephen, who would you ever thought that you could have caused such a fuss. 

  

Posted In Features, Sep 07 2010. Words - The Ginger