Who is Louis Walsh?
Louis Walsh, born 1952, is a talent manager and media personality – now best known for his long-standing role as a judge on the reality competition, X Factor.
Born in Kiltimagh, Ireland, Walsh was the second of eight children, and moved to Dublin in the 1970s in order to pursue a career in the music industry.
After his success as a manager, including Boyzone and Westlife, Walsh joined the panel of judges for the Irish edition of Popstars in 2001. The following year, he joined the UK team for Popstars: The Rivals, which formed a girlband and a boyband before pitting them against each other in the charts with releases on the same day.
The end result was that Girls Aloud, the girlband managed by Louis Walsh, easily beat Pete Waterman’s boyband One True Voice, topping the charts and going on to have a lengthy and successful run in the UK music scene. In contrast, One True Voice disbanded after releasing just two singles.
Louis was one of the three original judges when The X Factor launched in 2004, and remained on the show throughout its run, which ended in 2019. During this time, he managed a number of contestants after their time on the show came to an end, including G4, Jedward, and Shayne Ward.
How did Louis Walsh get involved with Boyzone?
Boyzone actually exists because of Louis Walsh. In 1993 he held auditions in Dublin, Ireland, with the intention of creating a band that would be “the Irish Take That”.
Walsh was involved in the curation of the band, choosing from over 300 applicants, shuffling and replacing members until the final line-up of Ronan Keating, Stephen Gately, Mikey Graham, Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy was cemented.
Richard Rock and Mark Walton were originally members of the group but were later replaced with Graham.
While the band was still in its infancy, without having even laid down a record, Walsh got them a performance slot on The Late Late Show, which they were mocked for. However, the band later grew to become one of Ireland’s biggest pop groups of all time.
Walsh was responsible for pushing Keating and Gately to the forefront of the band, which ultimate began to grate on Graham, who was arguably the more musically talented.
He also publicly admits feeding fake news stories to the press to keep the band members in the public eye, including speculation about their dating lives, and incidents on nights out.
In the documentary, Walsh confesses to leaking a story about Boyzone being in a plane crash, and failing to tell their family members it was a minor accident with no injuries.
The band were together for six years, before initially disbanding in 1999, at which point Walsh focused his efforts on Keating’s solo career and a secondary band, Westlife, whom Walsh had set up as a “rival” to Boyzone.
He would later publicly fall out with Keating, but they would make amends by 2008.
Who has been managed by Louis Walsh?
Louis Walsh has had a string of highly successful acts under his management during his career, largely Irish stars and former X Factor contestants.
To date, these are:
- Boyzone (and then Ronan Keating’s solo career)
- Westlife
- Samantha Mumba
- Bellefire
- Girls Aloud
- G4
- Jedward
- Shayne Ward
- Union J
When can I watch Boyzone: No Matter What?
Boyzone: No Matter What is available in full now on Sky Documentaries and to stream on NOW.
It runs for three, hour-long episodes.
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