Stephen Gately Article

Having just read the newspaper article everyone seems to be talking - and complaining - about, it strikes me that there is either some extreme naïveté afoot, or someone cares so little about the feelings of this young man’s family and friends, that they would press the button marked “Character Assassination” with the same flippancy they’d use to switch on the kettle.
Whilst this certainly is a hot topic, a kettle it is not.
I am, of course, referring to last week’s tragic death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately, found dead in his holiday home of apparent natural causes. The article in the Daily Rag allegedly infers that his downfall was brought about largely because of his lifestyle. It also infers that we shouldn’t be too surprised to wake up to the news of any famous person’s death - and bizarrely, even going as far as listing a few to look out for!

The only difference between the man in the street and someone who enjoys some degree of fame, is just that, the fact that they have become well known for whatever it is they have done, or are doing. These people don’t actually live inside the TV set, not do they (for the most part) live life at 300mph, in a sea of class-A drugs, whilst hanging from the ceiling in a rubber cat suit. It’s preposterous to the point of tedium to imagine these folk are any different from you and I, and yet  many people do. What’s more disturbing is the fact that this short-sighted and juvenile view, can not only be shared by a supposedly intelligent professional, but foisted onto the entire readership of the paper as being hard fact.
Even if this young man did live a hedonistic lifestyle, and get blind drunk every night, what business is it of ours? Even if he did enjoy relationships with several partners, then he is no different to millions of other young guys, gay and straight alike, it’s hardly a news story in itself.

What’s really got stuck in this particular journalist’s craw, is simply the fact that we know so little about what really happened to him that night. We’re so used to having an instant, blow by blow account of everything these days - including deaths - that to be denied the juicy gossip has caused a short circuit in the writer’s synapses, triggering the spiteful article hormone and causing the very same shock wave she was deprived of, by not having the nitty-gritty on this poor boys last breaths. She seemingly fails to grasp that this was a young man in the prime of his life, with a loving partner and family who’s lives have been thoroughly shattered by recent events. What his parent’s will think when they read this article is anyone’s guess, but I’m betting it won’t be very pleasant for them, to severely understate matters. The writer must have known that this story would be received with the revulsion it deserves, and surely knew that to make sweeping generalisations, based on every homophobic cliché that ever existed, would cause uproar?

 Maybe she did. Maybe she felt that not being told what she felt to be “The truth” about Stephen Gately’s death, deserved a new truth to be fabricated, so that like-minded folk had something to talk about over the weekend. It seems to be told nothing - when we are clearly owed nothing - about his death, was a slight that simply had to be avenged and this is absolute proof that the pen is not only mightier than the sword, it caused just as much damage when wielded by an insensitive and bitter individual, on a crusade to warn the artistic world of impending doom, should they not conform to the image she has in her mind, of what a celebrity should be.  With such a clear degree of prejudice, I shudder to think of how the article would have read, had Stephen also have been black!

It would be the most supreme instance of poetic justice, if in coming weeks, her closet was to burst open and hoards of skeletons come charging out, resplendent in S&M gear, furry pink handcuffs and carrying a large selection of forged expense sheets and hard drugs. I wouldn’t put any money on it, but as pride does indeed preclude a fall, I wouldn’t rule out someone having the ability to dig up at least a little dirt on this wretched woman.