Westlife star tells of being down to his ‘last few quid’
The singer, who is now pursuing a solo career, found himself in financial turmoil after Shafin Developments, the property company he established with his brother Finbarr, went into receivership in 2012.
After selling over 50m records with Westlife, Filan was left €23m in debt.
In an interview with Pat Kenny to be broadcast on UTV Ireland on Monday, he was asked if had lost everything.
“Everything actually, yeah. It was really bad. We had just played Croke Park, it is incredible looking back at it. We played to 170,000 people in one weekend and the following week, I had a few hundred quid. I literally had a few hundred quid in my bank account.”
VIDEO: @ShaneFilan talks of financial turmoil, the Westlife days, and Simon Cowell. http://t.co/eDl7O7xerr pic.twitter.com/NBD9749Hsg
— Ireland Live News (@IrelandLive) May 28, 2015
Final also told of his wife Gillian’s support. “I remem-ber standing in the house in Sligo and I said, ‘Look we could lose this house. It’s not looking good.’ She said, ‘I don’t care, we could live in a cardboard box,’ and that’s the type of woman she was, that was her comment.”
