Life after boybands

Guardian has a lovely story about strange, lonely and frequently ridiculous life of men who were once in boybands.

"I kind of looked like an old lesbian aunt” - that's how Brian McFadden describes himself, post-Westlife when he started solo career, and had to chose his own clothes and haircut.

Derek Moran of the Irish band D-Side had a similar experience: "We’d be trying to make toast and the fire alarm would be going off. Or there’d be flies all over the salad because nobody told us it needed washing.”

Matt Goss from Bros talks about getting used to life without bodyguards, which left Goss feeling agoraphobic. “I remember one terrible moment in a shopping mall in America where everything seemed to go in slow motion. It got the better of me. I didn’t know how to navigate a place full of people without someone whisking me away.”

Loneliness allo hit: “I had this vision of hanging out with my kids and seeing my mates. But as soon as I got home everyone around me was off to work and the kids were in school. I’d end up begging my mates to go hooky off work so we could play golf. I went from being surrounded by all these people every day and singing in front of thousands to being surrounded by ... nobody”, says McFadden.