Shane Filan has revealed Westlife’s future was thrown into doubt when Mark Feehily was forced to leave the band when he first got sick. But the singer insisted Mark wanted them to go on without him.
In February of this year, Mark announced he was taking a break from Westlife to focus on his health woes after undergoing surgery to treat a hernia and recover for sepsis during a Covid lockdown in August 2020.
In February, Mark told fans in a lengthy social media post: “Most of you are aware that I have had some health challenges over the past while.
“It is with the utmost level of regret that I must now temporarily stand down from all Westlife touring until a time that I have had the chance to fully recover from the turbulent journey I have been through as an individual.
“This would be my fourth major surgery since the start of it all, but I had no option.
“That surgery took place recently and thankfully it went according to plan but with that, my recovery must now become my absolute priority at this time.
“Believe me, I wish things could be different,” he said at the time, while also thanking the band for their love and support through his health woes.
“He missed nearly half the tour so when you’ve sold out shows and when he got sick the first time, he got pneumonia, it was an hour and a half before the first show in Newcastle.
“So we had six weeks of run-ins then. When we were doing the 3Arena it was a run in then, so we had no time.
“We weren’t going to cancel a load of shows, and we saw the people walking in. We had to make a decision.
“We made the decision to keep the flag flying. We can’t wait to have him back.”
Leave a Reply