Fallen Idol

Lying slumped over the grand piano in the bar of one of Manchester's top hotels in the early hours of the morning was a teenage singer, supposedly the most wholesome star of his generation.

After drinking for a marathon 12 hours, it was little surprise that Gareth Gates should be the worse for wear. But for the onlookers who stumbled across him as they breakfasted in the Lowry Hotel, it was shocking that Gates looked more like a tramp than the golden boy who had charmed a nation.

Throughout the small hours, the singer had been downing bottles of the hotel's most expensive champagne, occasionally breaking off to play the piano and sing with his friend Zoe Birkett and Westlife star Kian Egan.

They were in Manchester to appear on the prestigious Top Of The Pops Awards show. But as Gates sank into drunken oblivion, he seemed unworried that he was due to appear in front of millions on the live programme just hours later.

As a small crowd gathered around him, a panicking aide finally scooped Gates off his seat and packed him off to his room to try quickly to sober up in time for rehearsals.

For those who witnessed the scene, it was shocking proof that the young boy - whose courage in overcoming an appalling stutter had won him a legion of devoted fans on the TV talent contest show Pop Idol - was not quite as they imagined.

Many teen stars are given the tag 'squeaky clean'. But Gates had appeared to be the genuine article. An avid church goer, who blushed when asked to sign autographs on women's cleavages, 17-year-old Gareth looked and acted innocent. His hero, he announced, was Cliff Richard.

How times have changed. After a series of drinking sprees and a sex scandal to boot, it now appears that Gareth's innocent boy act was all a sham.

Only this week Gates confessed that, despite repeated denials, he had indeed conducted a brief affair with the sleazy glamour model Jordan.

Moreover, their night of passion was conducted while she was heavily pregnant by another of her celebrity lovers, the footballer Dwight Yorke.

JORDAN, who once said she wanted to 'marry' Gareth, had earlier described a threemonth relationship with the singer. He denied the romance so vehemently to his record label that they even threatened to sue the model for 'lying'.

It was only when she threatened to write a book chronicling the affair that he admitted it was true. He claimed he had lied to protect his friends and family.

As usual, the announcement was carefully controlled by Gareth's manager, the pop impresario Simon Fuller, who arranged an interview in a magazine sympathetic to his wayward star.

'I was very naive,' Gates told the magazine of the relationship. 'I was a 17-year-old who

had moved from Bradford to London and she pursued me.

'I'll be honest with you - it was flattering at the time, the fact that she was chasing me.'

What he failed to mention, however, was that at the time of the affair he was also dating his fellow Pop Idol contestant Hayley Evetts.

Yesterday Hayley was still coming to terms with Gates's deception.

'He's a lying little sh**,' she raged to one friend. 'There were stories in the newspapers about Gareth and Jordan, but he always said they were rubbish.

'I believed him because I loved him. I certainly would never have thought that the Gareth I knew was capable of something like this. I was always there for him and he has let me down.'

Many of Gareth's young fans were also shocked and perplexed by their idol's behaviour. Some were openly questioning on his official website chatroom whether the announcement was merely a cynical move to help generate publicity.

The reality is rather different. For aides at Gates's management company admit they are seriously worried about the young star's drinking and womanising - a lifestyle that he is clearly revelling in.

Recently Gates revealed that he has a new hero: Elvis Presley. 'I want the whole showbiz lifestyle that he had,' he said. 'The champagne, the fast cars, the girls.'

And he is pursuing this dream with a vengeance. He is regularly spotted coming out of London nightspots clearly the worse for wear.

'I have seen Gareth out on a number of occasions and he certainly puts away the drink,' said one regular on the party scene.

He is certainly pursuing the girls with vigour.

But while tales of drunkenness and debauchery may work well at the rowdier end of the pop spectrum, Gates has always been marketed as a clean-living heart-throb for a pre-teen audience. Such tawdry behaviour could gravely damage his popularity.

'We have told him that he has got to calm down,' admitted one of his aides. 'It isn't out of control yet, but we are concerned.

'We have noticed the drinking, but more worrying for us, in a way, is the fact that he lied to us over and over again about Jordan. We need to be able to trust our artists and it means that we can't trust anything he says.

'In some respects, of course, he is just like any other 19-year-old boy. But Gareth is also a millionaire who is adored by girls everywhere he goes - that can do funny things to people.'

So grave is the situation that his worried parents have now been brought in by Fuller to help try to bring their son under control.

Though Gareth bought them an idyllic £575,000 farmhouse just outside Bradford two weeks ago, his mother Wendy and father Paul now stay with him in London every time he is in the capital.

THE record label were so concerned that they asked Wendy to do something,' added the aide. 'She is quite domineering and is the only one Gareth listens to. She is pretty worried about him and what he gets up to in London.'

His friends, meanwhile, admit they do not know what to do.

The Mail can reveal that earlier this month a group of Gates's Pop Idol friends, including Hayley Evetts and the show's eventual winner Will Young, gathered in a West London flat to discuss their worries about their friend.

'He seems to be going off the rails a bit,' said one of them, who asked not to be named.

'He has distanced himself from all of us and we are concerned about him and the way he is running his life.

'Someone should take him to one side and make sure he's looking after himself properly. It's not nice for his young fans to see him this way - nor his friends, for that matter.'

In the record industry, there are real fears that Gareth is turning into a second Jason Donovan - the archetypal boy-next-door who rebelled and saw his popularity plummet.

GARETH is not particularly intelligent and is in an unreal situation,' said one top manager last night. 'I don't think it really surprises anyone that he has gone a bit wild.

'Will Young, who is obviously his main contemporary, is older and wiser, so he hasn't found himself in this situation, but Gareth has got caught up in the whole showbiz thing.

'It is easy to turn to something like drink for comfort and confidence, but it appears that Gareth has gone too far. With Jordan, he has made a big mistake and it could lead to his downfall.'

But Gareth's management company claim that they have his problems under control. 'He is a young boy growing up in the public eye,' said his spokeswoman Charlotte Hickson yesterday.

'He is just making the same mistakes other young people his age make. He has learned his lesson, and he has probably learned it with more force as everything has happened so publicly. Admitting he was lying was a difficult thing to do and it shows how he has matured.'

But with his popularity already waning and record sales going down, it will be interesting to see if Gareth can weather this latest storm.

Manufactured pop acts are notoriously short-lived; doubly so if they owe their big break to a fleeting moment of TV glory.

Gareth Gates is going to have to change dramatically if he plans to keep his Elvis Presley lifestyle going.