If I’d missed X Factor auditions for my twin’s wedding, I wouldn’t be sitting here now
As a concert at the SSE Arena in Belfast in May is announced, Olly Murs talks to Craig McLean about teaming up with Ed Sheeran for a charity gig, mental health and family
Olly Murs is showing me an email on his phone. The punctuation is a bit wonky, but the sentiment isn’t. “Mate, just heard Moves,” it reads. “You smashed it. I was smiling throughout. Very exciting. It’s gonna be huge, man. So excited for you.”
Murs rocks back in his seat outside a Kensington pub and beams like the cat that got the cream. The emailer is Ed Sheeran. The subject is the Sheeran-penned Moves, Murs’ boisterous and, indeed, smash-shaped comeback single. It’s the follow-up to an album (2016’s 24 Hrs) that was a bit sad-face emoji, written as it was in the wake of the Essex lad’s split from his girlfriend.
“She’s moved on now and she’s met someone else,” shrugs the professionally chirpy singer, presenter and judge on The Voice, “and I’m happy for her.”
Just to rub his nose in it, that someone else is called Ollie. “Yeah, exactly. That’s a kick in the nuts, innit?”
Still, onwards, and all that. Britain’s second-favourite The X Factor alumnus (after the 1D five-headed hydra) sought solace in the gym-toned arms of Melanie
Sykes (“We didn’t date for a year, we just had a brief fling, and it was lovely”) and in the platinum-plated song-writing capabilities of Sheeran, one of his oldest pals in music.
Just to copper-bottom the commercial prospects of copper-top’s composition, Murs also hired Snoop Dogg for a guest rap — and Rowan Atkinson for a cameo in the video, a nod to Moves’ soundtrack slot in the climax of the imminent Johnny English threequel.
Elsewhere on the album, which is entitled You Know I Know, there are two more A-lister hangouts, Nile Rodgers and Shaggy.
Then, in a final stroke of take-no-chances marketing, Murs’ sixth album is a double — a brace of new songs backed with a greatest hits disc. Nine years on from cheeky-chappying his way into the nation’s affections on The
X Factor — he came second to Joe McElderry — Murs is moving into phase two of his career with all guns blazing. No wonder he’s Mr Smiley.
“Well, it’s funny, I bumped into Cheryl at the Prince’s Trust …”
Cheryl? “Cole. Or Tweedy. I don’t know what her surname is now. But I’m friends with her and she said to me, ‘Olly, are you happy all the time? I just want to know you’re the same as me — we all have our bad days’. As it happens,
I was having a tough time, I can’t remember why. I said, ‘Cheryl, trust me, I’m having a really s*** time, but I’m not going to come meet you and be miserable’.”
Indeed, he has “loads of days” when the sun isn’t shining, yesterday being one of them. The currently single pop star spent the day alone at his home in Epping. “I couldn’t be bothered to get up and do anything, no one was talking to me. I just sat and played Fifa all day — and I kept getting beaten. It was one of the worst days I’ve ever had,” he jokes.
Murs, who’s looking impressively built these days, was resting up after straining his calf during the Great North Run the previous weekend. He ran the half-marathon with his sister Fay — he in support of children’s charity Brainwaves, she in support of Mind, “because of her issues involving panic attacks and anxiety in public spaces”. Together
the pair raised £75,000.
If only all his familial relations were as satisfactory. Murs remains estranged from his twin, Ben, as are his sister and parents. They haven’t spoken since Murs was unable to attend Ben’s wedding because of commitments on The X Factor semi-final. Inter-family relations were already strained, but that seemed to be the final straw.
“If I’d have left the filming, I might not be sat here now,” he says in a matter-of-fact way.
“It was a decision I’m happy that I made. Yeah, looking back at it now, I haven’t got my twin brother around anymore, which is a massive shame, but I didn’t in my wildest dreams expect that nine years later we wouldn’t have resolved it.”
On their 34th birthday earlier this year, Murs texted Ben, “but he’s changed his number. I thought hopefully we could have patched things up”.
To no avail. No one in the family knows Ben’s new number and all are in the dark as to his whereabouts.
“He could be living in Sweden, or Italy, or Manchester. I love my brother, and I always will, but I don’t know how he’s feeling.”
Murs freely admits he’s spent time in therapy, looking for help in dealing with “life experiences”. He mentions his mistake while hosting The X Factor in 2015, “giving the wrong information on stage to the girl (Monica Michael) about going home. I laughed it off.
“The papers didn’t laugh it off — they made a massive deal about it. The media attention, and the social media aspect, upset me the most.
“They really tried to take me to the cleaners. They tried to make me lose my job over a silly, small mistake.
“And when I went back to singing, it made me overthink what I was doing. (I was thinking) ‘I’m going to forget the lyrics, what I’m doing’. So that was something I needed to speak to a therapist about. And I’m not scared to admit that — that’s the stigma that men have.”
He was similarly besieged last November after claiming on Twitter he heard gunfire while shopping in luxury department store Selfridges on Oxford Street.
“Piers Morgan and the guys jumped on it massively,” he sighs. “People can say what they want, and I’m not embarrassed at all — I’m more embarrassed for the people who tweeted or made a joke about it. I can speak for the 400, 500, 1,000 people who were in Selfridges that day — everyone went mental. I’m running for my life because I’m thinking someone’s behind me, shooting.
“Piers knew he’d get some publicity out of it. That’s all he did it for. I’ve met him many times, and he is what he is. But he should have been a man and spoke to me personally, or even messaged me directly.
“I’ll never speak to Piers Morgan again because he was bang out of order… it was pathetic.”
With admirable self-knowledge born of those perhaps under-appreciated downs, as well as myriad ups (four number one albums and singles), Murs is a fitting participant, alongside Sheeran, Anne-Marie, Ella Eyre and James Arthur, in November’s charity gig at the Camden Roundhouse in aid of mental health awareness.
He’s an Essex lad suddenly dunked into celebrity goldfish bowl and he has the psychological bruises to prove it.
Indeed, in the shade of the chart-bothering ‘sturm und drang’ of the blockbuster pop songs on You Know I Know is a song that’s no less important to Murs. Talking To Yourself is Murs and his co-writers digging into his mental health, “about how I deal with things”.
“Men don’t like to ask for help,” he says. “We like to try and solve everything ourselves, but you need to talk to someone. It’s me saying, ‘Look, Olly, you can’t always get things right on your own. You will make mistakes, so you need to get help from someone else sometimes’.”
And whether that someone is Ed Sheeran or a therapist, the song remains the same. Moves (RCA) is out on Friday. Olly Murs plays Music 4 Mental Health at Camden Roundhouse on November 18. whole.org.uk/music4-mental-health
Tickets for Olly Murs go on sale Friday, October 12, 9am from Ticketmaster outlets; 24hr Credit Card Bookings 0818 719300 or book online www.ticketmaster.ie. Tickets also available from The SSE Arena Box Office tel, 9073 9074.
❝Looking back at it now, I haven’t got my twin brother around any more, which is a massive shame
❝ Men don’t like to ask for help. We always like to try and solve everything ourselves