THE 90s were filled with clean cut boybands like Boyzone, Westlife, and Take That, so when 5ive came along they certainly changed the mould.
With their edgy attitude and catchy tunes, these five lads took the UK by storm – but behind-the-scenes there was a different story which resulted in a VERY bitter break-up.
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As teenagers, Abz Love, Sean Conlon, Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson, and Jason ‘Jay’ Brown were hand-picked from 3,000 hopefuls at an audition set up by the creators of the Spice Girls.
They then burst onto the scene in 1997 as the members of the new boyband, 5ive.
They hit the charts with their debut single Slam Dunk (Da Funk), which made a big splash in the Top Ten.
The song was an instant hit and shot the new boyband stars to fame, with their faces plastered on teenage bedrooms across the UK.
The hits kept rolling in, with songs like Keep On Movin’, Got The Feelin’ and When The Lights Go Out, securing them the acclaim of being one of the biggest boy groups in Britain at that time.
But during their time together, and in the years that followed their split, the band were riddled by feuds, drug use, arrests and rows with other celebrities.
Now that 5ive have confirmed they are getting back together for another reunion, we take a look at some of the group’s most controversial moments.
BITTER BREAK UP
In January 2001, 5ive performed to an audience of 500,000 people at Rock in Rio, but behind-the-scenes all was not well.
“On stage we were the best ever. Off stage we were a train wreck,” said Scott on ITV2‘s The Big Reunion in 2013.
“Life in 5ive was mental. It was five years of very hard work.
Five’s Ritchie Neville adopts an Oz accent
“You see the inside of a hotel room, an airport, a radio studio. It’s hard.”
Band mate Abz added: “I know there were times when one of them would be p*ssed off with another one (in the band). There’d be fights going off.”
In agreement, Richie said: “We were difficult, bordering on being ar*eholes. We were delinquents.”
The boys eventually split on September 27, 2001, leaving fans devastated.
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DRINK AND DRUGS
One person who really struggled with the break-up of the band was Abz.
The singer has since revealed he was “high as a motherf***er all day long” after his boyband days with 5ive were over.
After their split, and a failed attempt at a solo career, Abz’s life spiralled out of control.
In 2017, he told Shortlist Magazine: “I didn’t trust anyone – I was high as a f***ing motherf***er all day long.
I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was completely emotionally and spiritually lost. So I drank to forget.
Ritchie on 5ive’s split
“Wake up in the morning, coke, lemon sorbet with f***ing vodka, blazing all day.
“I was playing this role, but it wasn’t me. Nobody knows this s**t about me.”
Indeed Abz, who was just 17 when he joined the band, ended up bankrupt after the money stopped coming in to fund his extravagant lifestyle.
The remaining members of the band – minus Jay – offered him lifelines in the form of corporate gigs and reunion shows, but he wasn’t having any of it.
He said: “I hated 5ive. I f***ing hated 5ive’s music.
“That period when I was broken. I was like ‘F*** 5ive, I don’t even want to talk about it’.”
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HITTING ROCK BOTTOM
Abz wasn’t the only one who fell into despair after 5ive came to an end in 2001.
Ritchie also talked of how he hit an “epic low” after the group disbanded.
Back in November, the singer opened up about how the split affected him in an exclusive interview with The Sun’s TV Mag.
The singer admitted he turned to drink when his career in music seemed to be falling apart, and said: “After the band, you know, I hit an epic low.
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“Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do anymore. And my heart wasn’t in making an album.
“The powers that be wanted me to sing ballads. I like a ballad, but that’s not what I want to do.
“I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was completely emotionally and spiritually lost.
“So I did drink way more than I should for a few years there. I drank to forget.”
He added that he lost two or three years of his life to drinking before Kung Fu helped him out of the dark hole.
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SIMON COWELL ROW
Revelations in the BBC’s Boybands Forever documentary emerged which included a tale of of a violent bust-up between Scott and Simon Cowell.
The music guru was instrumental in putting the band together but in the group’s final days he clashed with Scott.
On reaching breaking point in 2001, Scott said: “I pinned one of the big cheeses at the record label up against his desk with my foot, crushing him into the wall, and said, ‘I will f***ing leave this band, you try and f***ing stop me’, with Simon Cowell trying to fight me off him.”
Speaking about the clash, Simon said: “We almost ended up in a fist fight. I was that close to punching him in the face.”
Scott added: “I’d lost my mind. They had to call security and carry me out of the building kicking and screaming like a f***ing wild dog.”
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BULLYING CLAIMS
Jay was left gobsmacked when his bandmates accused of him of being a bully when they appeared on The Big Reunion, in 2013
At the time, he hit back and said: “I thought, ‘I actually can’t believe what I’m hearing and who I’m hearing it from’.
“I was loud and a bit aggressive at times, and I was physically bigger than them so I can see how that could have been taken a certain way.
“But never in my mind was I so-called bullying people.”
On the show, fans were stunned as the band rowed about their split and Ritchie raged: “There were two obnoxious people who ruined it for us – Sean and J.”
Five’s best loved songs
- Slam Dunk (Da Funk) – released in 1997
- When the Lights Go Out – released in 1998
- Got the Feelin’ – released in 1998
- Everybody Get Up – released in 1998
- If Ya Gettin’ Down – released in 1999
- Keep On Movin – released in 1999
- We Will Rock You” – released in 2000
- Let’s Dance – released in 2001
BAR BRAWL
Despite having a string of hits, towards the end the band gave up caring.
Things got so bad that Ritchie and Jay were arrested for a bar fight in Dublin which they hoped would anger their bosses.
In the BBC doc, Ritchie recalled: “The phone rings and it’s Simon Cowell. Oh s**t. Thinking he’s going to be like ‘What the hell?’.
“His exact words were, ‘Well f***ing done, you can’t f***ing buy publicity like that. This is amazing’.”
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FEUD WITH GIRLBAND
Fellow 90s pop group B*Witched once claimed that 5ive were “really horrible to them” back in the day.
During heyday the two groups would often crossed paths – but it seems they didn’t always get on.
Spilling the beans on Vicky Pattison’s The Secret To podcast, band member Edele Lynch said: “They [Five] used to be really horrible to us.
“Like we’d be in like dressing rooms next door and they throw their beer over – like the bottles and everything!”
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TURNING DOWN HUGE SONGS
The boys almost sabotaged their own success by rejecting tracks that went on to be hits for other artists — including Britney Spears.
Their manager Chris Herbert – famed for bringing the world the Spice Girls – told the BBC doc: “We brought the boys into the studio and said, ‘You’re going to listen to this song, it’s called Baby One More Time’.
“And the boys went, ‘It’s f***ing w**k’. This couldn’t get any worse.
“We also got offered Bye Bye Bye which then became a massive hit for NSYNC as well. The boys turned that one down.”
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QUITTING ON TWITTER
After several attempts at previous reunions, Abz decided he’d had enough and announced he was leaving the band in a tweet in 2014.
He penned: “As of today I am no longer a member of @Official5ive.
“Thank you to all the fans who supported, I love you all.“
However, this week Abz revealed he was back in 5ive.
With an identical tweet to the the one he shared in 2014, he announced to fans: “As of today I am once again a member of @itsfiveofficial.
“Thank you to all the fans who support us, I love you all..”
As plans of a reunion are put into place, fans are now waiting to see how the next chapter in 5ive’s history will play out.
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