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Stephen Gately died from undiagnosed heart condition
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 25 January 2010
A Spanish judge closed the official investigation into the death of the late Boyzone star Stephen Gately on Friday, concluding that he died of natural causes having suffered from a previously undiagnosed heart condition called atheromatosis, which results in a thickening of the arteries.
A pathologist report submitted to court said that while Gately had been drinking heavily and had smoked cannabis shortly before his death, neither were actually factors in his passing. Both Gately’s family and his widower Andy Cowles were formally informed of the ruling this weekend.
As previously reported, Gately died at his and Cowle’s holiday home in Port d’Andratx on the Spanish island of Majorca after a night out last October. The judge’s ruling regarding the causes of Gately’s death will further vindicate those who were angered by comments made by rubbish Mail hack Jan Moir on the eve of the singer’s funeral, in which she dubbed the Boyzone star’s passing as “unnatural”, musing that “healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again”.
Recent revelations about the third man at Gately and Cowle’s home on the night of the singer’s death perhaps added to those who bought Moir’s theory that the Boyzoner’s lifestyle – that his to say his ‘gay lifestyle’ – might have played a part in his demise. Bulgarian Georgi Dochev, who originally claimed to have met Gately and Cowles for the first time on the night the former died, recently told a radio station in his home country that he had actually known them both for two years and that he had regularly met up with them for sexual liaisons.
But, of course, while such revelations make good gossip, they are irrelevant regarding the causes of Gately’s death. Because, as the Spanish pathologist’s report shows, and as anyone with any common sense but without a tedious weekly Daily Mail column to pad out knows, sometimes seemingly healthy and fit 33 year old men do just go to sleep and die.
In related news, Mika has been talking about one of his songs acting as something of an official tribute to the late Gately. Boyzone’s next single, the Mika penned ‘Gave It All Away’, was recorded last summer and therefore features vocals from Gately, footage of whom appears in the accompanying pop promo alongside his bandmates looking all kinds of sad.
The band had originally hoped to release a version of the song as their comeback single back in 2008, after their 2007 reformation and to accompany their hits album that year, but word was Mika had declined to let them, dubbing their rendition “too cheesy”. But since Gately’s death he’s given the all clear for this latest version to be released, he being quoted on the Boyzone website this weekend: “I was shocked and saddened when I hear about Stephen’s passing, he touched so many people’s lives both with his music and with his wonderful personality. It’s an honour to hear him sing my song. I wish all the best to the rest of the boys. I’m proud of the song and proud of their version”.
The single is doing the rounds on the net right now, and should get a physical CD release in early March, to coincide with the new Boyzone album ‘Brothers’.
