LEE
And I just spewed it all out, not just the stuff about whales and elephants, but also about starving children, people dying of AIDS, famines, wars that had been going on for decades around the world, all ignored by the media. Why did I say all of that? Because they asked me. Because I was tired. Because I really did believe in some of that stuff, but it all came out wrong. And because I was 18, and I thought my opinion mattered.
I also added for good measure just in case there was any doubt, ‘I’m not afraid to say this, it has to be said and that’s why I’m the outspoken one from the band.’
DUNCAN
And that was it. We were a bit surprised, but we weren’t too worried. We all just thought, ‘Lee’s been a berk, but no harm done.’ Off home, job done. And then the shit hit the fan.
Our PR got straight on the phone to our manager, Daniel, who hauled us all over to the Virgin offices. Seems it was a bigger deal than we’d realised. The big chiefs were there and Daniel was insisting, ‘I don’t believe he said that. He’s not that stupid.’ But the publicist told him, ‘Four times. On the record. You’re fucked.’
Even the top brass from Virgin were down on their knees, trying to reach out to The Sun, but the people at the paper were having none of it. Dominic Mohan had his scoop, he was sharpening his pencil and he was going to run with it. It was too good not to.
ANTONY
The next morning, the paper came out. The good news was Blue had made its first ever front page. The bad news was it looked like it was all over for the band. There it was, up front and centre, a picture of the burning Twin Towers, us, and Lee quoted with the headline, ‘F*** New York’.
LEE
I thought, ‘I didn’t say that.’
DUNCAN
Inside, there was a double-page spread, with Lee quoted, in all his glory: ‘What about the whales? They are ignoring animals that are more important. Animals need saving and that’s more important. This New York thing is being blown out of proportion. I’m not afraid to say this, it has to be said and that’s why I’m the outspoken one from the band.’ Ouch!
Normally, the record company would be ecstatic about the prospect of one of their bands landing a double-page spread in The Sun, but from how our manager sounded on the phone, it didn’t sound like they were celebrating! We were hauled back into the office once more, while our publicists went into damage limitation mode, apologising to all and sundry for what Lee had said, saying he didn’t mean it. They issued a statement from him, even pledging to donate all his royalties from our next single to the Two Towers Fund, run by The Sun itself.
ANTONY
They decided it would be good for the band to speak out for Lee, saying how upset he was, how his ideas had come out wrong. They wheeled Duncan out to do a lot of the interviews, because he’s the most articulate of the four of us, but we all had our bit to do – all except Lee, that is. He’d been banned from speaking ever again, by the looks of things.
SIMON
We’d been booked to appear on the pop show SM:TV Live the following morning, but that was immediately cancelled. We thought, ‘Bloody hell. In the space of 24 hours, we were up there, and now it’s all over.’
ANTONY
It went dark very quickly. My mum ran our fan club, along with Duncan’s mum, and we received threats from Americans, saying they would throw anthrax at us. If we set foot in the US, they were going to shoot us dead. It was all pretty scary.
Some Brits were equally hostile. Thank goodness there was no Twitter at the time because the fan mail was bad enough, plus the people stopping us in the street. ‘Your bandmate’s a cunt, I hope he dies, I hope you all die, you’re a bunch of wankers.’ The stuff dreams are made of. There was a poll in The Sun, asking people to vote on whether Lee should be thrown out of the band. Our manager, Daniel, ended up in hospital for two days with stress-related gastroenteritis.
DUNCAN
When asked about Lee’s future with the band, our management released statements saying ‘No comment’, so they were definitely keeping their options open.
SIMON
It was never an option for us to throw Lee out. We saw exactly how it had happened. That stupid kid should have been sent to his room and told to shut up, not invited to say more stuff by grown adults who knew they were going to stitch him up. Instead, The Sun turned Lee into the villain of 9/11. It was a lot to put on the shoulders of an 18-year-old, and I was worried how he would take it. He ended up embracing it in his own way, saying, ‘If you think I’m an idiot, I’m going to behave like one.’ But we never blamed him for what happened. There was never a cross word about it between the four of us, not one.
DUNCAN
I never blamed him – I saw exactly how it happened and it could have been any one of us. Lee was just the youngest, the most outspoken. But he didn’t mean any harm, and we knew that, which was why it was so easy to forgive. If it had been a calculated, premeditated thing, that would have been different, but there was no malice, it was just one in a long line of very innocent fuck-ups, and you end up kind of loving him for it.
He’s apologised lots of times, and we know what he’s like. We’ve seen his real heart and it’s impossible not to like him. You just have to remind him occasionally to think before he speaks.
ANTONY
‘Cross’ is the wrong word, and he didn’t have anything to apologise for. We were all very, very tired. Throwing him out was never an option. You don’t kick a man when he’s down – you pick him up and dust him off. It was more a case of it’s happened, what shall we do? Split, or carry on? And we carried on.
DUNCAN
We all knew it was much better to stick together and work our way through it. It proved our integrity and tested our loyalty, because there was a massive cry to kick him out, but the three of us were very vocal that it wasn’t going to happen. It’s one of the many reasons we are so close to this day. Plus, we loved him.
LEE
At the time it was incredibly frustrating because every time I tried to put things right, I got shut up by the record label, which was probably just as well, as I would undoubtedly have dug an even bigger hole for myself. The problem was that although I did have some strong sentiments that what the press were focusing on was misguided, I didn’t have the language to express them properly. I couldn’t believe I’d become the target of all this hatred. I thought I was just saying what lots of people thought, that politicians were steering us into a war, that the poor victims of the Twin Towers were being exploited, and meanwhile the world was falling apart – but the way The Sun pitched it, I was the biggest problem with 9/11. I was just angry about every aspect of it.
I’ve always realised how terrible it sounds out of context, but now I look back on it, I also find the attention that was paid to me pretty bizarre. I obviously thought my opinion was terribly important, but no one else should have. I was a stupid kid, shooting his mouth off. That platform was far too big for my brain. Why does the country’s biggest newspaper think for a minute that’s worth putting on the front page, anyway? I guess a mouthy pop star has always made for easy pickings, but still …
Of course it affected me, having that level of abuse on two continents coming my way, but probably not as much as it might have done. The truth of the matter was that by the time I joined Blue and went to New York on that fateful day, I’d already seen a lot of horrible things in my life. Apart from the love of my family, my childhood on a rough estate had exposed me to experiences that left me probably damaged, but also battle-hardened. I’d taken lots of drugs at too young an age before I got my head together, I’d threatened people bigger than me, and been threatened by people smaller. As a teenager I’d nearly messed my life up properly and somehow come through in one piece.