WHEN I finished my daily workout at the gym last Wednesday I switched on my phone to half a dozen messages telling me that pop star Shayne Ward was having dinner at Nandos in Leeds.
He had appeared on Look North and Calendar that evening to promote his UK tour, which comes to Sheffield on May 16 and Manchester on May 25.
I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to meet up with him again so I drove to my office where I had his number.
As soon as I’d texted him offering to show him around Leeds he replied and said he’d love to meet up.
We met up in the Greek Street area where there are lots of trendy bars and even though it was a quiet Wednesday night, Shayne was really enjoying sampling Leeds’ night scene.
He’s been there four times before but never on a night out.
We then jumped in my car to drive to my club Mission so I could give him the VIP treatment. It was also close to where he was staying.
He started to look through the CDs I had in my car and immediately picked out one with eighties music – “I really love the eighties”, he said and proceeded to serenade me at the top of his voice with Vienna by Ultravox.
ŠIt sounded amazing and I said he should definitely release it as a single. I gave him a couple of eighties CDs that I had and he was delighted.
My sister is Shayne’s number one fan and when I gave her tickets for Christmas to Shayne’s Sheffield concert in May she was over the moon and couldn’t stop crying.
I took her to meet Shayne last time he was in Leeds and she has the picture of them together by her bedside as if he’s her boyfriend. That same picture is on her Facebook profile too!
I couldn’t resist phoning her to tell her he was out with me that night and Shayne offered to have a chat with her on the phone and wished her goodnight. I think she was speechless so she texted me afterwards to say she couldn’t believe it.Š
Shayne told me that’s the best part of being a famous pop star – that you can have such a positive effect on people and it’s so rewarding.
His next career goal is breaking into the US charts and he has some international tours in the pipeline.ŠIn Japan he’s already a huge star and has appeared on loads of their TV shows.
Apparently they do lots of crazy things and because he laughs along with them they think he understands what’s going on.
He spoke to me in Japanese and I was really impressed. When translated though it meant ‘Hello good evening, I’m Shayne Ward and I’m so happy to be here.” It’s the only sentence he knows!!
