Stephen Gately of BoyZone Dies Suddenly

    PORT D’ANDRATX, Mallorca - Stephen Gately, a singer with the Irish boy band Boyzone who made headlines when he came out as gay a decade ago, died Saturday. He was 33.

    Gately died while visiting the island of Mallorca in Spain, the band said in a brief statement. The cause of death was not immediately clear.

    Gerald Kean, a Gately family friend in Ireland, said Sunday the singer died of natural causes, without identifying them. Kean said an autopsy was expected to be conducted Tuesday.

    Gately and his partner Andrew Cowles, who were wed in a civil union in 2006, were in Mallorca together, the band’s statement
said.

    Boyzone was a U.K. hitmaker in the 1990s and announced a comeback tour at the end of last year. Gately also had released several solo singles and appeared in stage musicals, including “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.“

    He revealed his sexual orientation to a British newspaper in 1999.

    Boyzone was one of the biggest acts to come out of Ireland in the 1990s.

    Boyzone sold millions of records and topped the British charts with six No. 1 singles during the 1990s, including “All That I Need” and a cover of the Bee Gees’ “Words.“

    The group was formed in 1993 by impresario Louis Walsh, who placed an ad in the press announcing auditions for Ireland’s first boy band.