Bryan McFadden has quit multi-million-selling Irish boy band Westlife. A news conference was held in Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel today (March 9) to announce the singer’s “amicable departure” from the group.
According to a statement from the band’s record company BMG, McFadden “will be spending time at home developing other aspects of his life.” Having penned “When My World Stops Turning,” Ireland’s entry in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest, McFadden is expected to embark on a solo career. BMG asserts that the band will continue to tour and record as a four-piece. Beginning March 29 at the Belfast Odyssey, the remaining band members will kick off a tour taking in more than 70 dates across Europe and Southeast Asia. McFadden (pictured middle) is understood to have balked at the prospect of having to spend the next four months on the road without his wife — former Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona — and children.
Since the band formed in 1999, Westlife has sold more than 32 million records worldwide, according to BMG, and has topped the U.K. singles chart 12 times. A studio album of duets “with A-list global superstars” is due for release this fall, says the major.
