Former Westlife singer Nicky Byrne has told how he suffered low self-esteem during the boyband’s heyday when manager Louis Walsh kept ridiculing him because of his teeth.
Byrne, 36, was speaking as part of Good Morning Britain’s selfie campaign after its survey found that women hit the delete button five times before settling on a snap which is good enough to post online.
He told the show: “It’s a very blokey thing to be not concerned about your appearance, but I think we all care deep down.
“You’re in a boyband you’re going to be vain. But I remember the early days it was … that my teeth were all over the place…”
Byrne, who eventually got a brace, said: “Louis used to always say to me ‘You’ve got to get your teeth done, you’ve got to get your teeth done’ and I suppose that resonated with me then and I went and got a brace.”
He added: “In those kind of crazy Westlife years, it is something that you can’t avoid – you see yourselves everywhere on magazine covers, on TV regularly and then you know you kind of think ‘I need to do that, I need to change, I need to train a little bit’.”
Good Morning Britain is encouraging viewers to share the first selfie they take, unfiltered, on social media under the hashtag #SelfieEsteem.