Westlife’s Mark warns fans of cruel online imposters
WESTLIFE star Mark Feehily has revealed the horrors of being ‘catfished’ online, with some of his fans being duped into thinking they have been chatting to him for up to 15 years. Catfishing is when someone creates a false identity online, often pretending to be a celebrity. Heartbroken fans, who thought they had been in intimate contact with their idol for years, have been messaging him with desperate pleas to know, ‘Why aren’t you my friend any more?’ ‘Someone’s been talking to them as if it’s me,’ said the singer who’s back in the limelight after the first Westlife single in eight years hit the airwaves to massive curiosity yesterday. Sadly, he has had to explain to naive Westlife devotees that they have been conned over the years by sinister online imposters who toyed with their personal feelings, often just for their own sick personal thrill. And Feehily, who shot to fame with Westlife more than 20 years ago, now warns his followers: ‘I don’t talk to fans through direct messages.’ The 38-year-old said: ‘Someone’s been talking to them as if it’s me, and fans tweet me saying we got this fan site shut down today. ‘It’s twisted and it’s the darker side of it. Some of these people think they’ve been talking to me for years and that we’ve shared these deep chats. They’re messaging me saying: “Why aren’t you my friend any more?” But someone has been pretending to be me.
‘One of them was actually one of their friends, doing it to them for years.
‘That’s the kind of crazy keyboard people who are out there.
‘You feel robbed because they think it’s you.’
Mark came out as gay in August 2005, having been aware of his sexual orientation since he was in his mid-teens.
More than a decade on, Mark addressed the pressure he feels as a gay man to look good, particularly in the age of social media.
He said: ‘In the gay community it’s been like that for a long time. Like on Instagram, you see people with their tops off and being in the gym seven days a week.’
But he added: ‘I’m so happy to be 38. It’s not what I look like but it’s knowing my mind and knowing what to worry about. I’m happy about being happy and healthy and looking good. I don’t feel I need to look a certain way.’
But he said that 20 years ago he thought he looked terrible, adding: ‘There were certain people who told me I looked too fat and I should fix my teeth.’