Kian's still living the BESTLIFE!

By Eddie Rowley

HE didn’t plan it, but life couldn’t be sweeter for former Westlife star Kian Egan.

The Sligo man is enjoying a starring role on The Voice of Ireland, has been crowned King of the Jungle after winning I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, and now he’s set to release a solo album.

• “I’m a jammy git, you said it,” Kian (33) laughs. “I didn’t have this master plan. After Westlife I was looking for something to do, rather than sitting at home in Sligo for the next few years... and all of this came along.
• “I had been thinking that maybe the odd TV presenting job might come through, or I’d open a little surf shop, or maybe a little drama school in Sligo. Those were the things that were going through my brain.”

Millionaire Egan, dressed casually and sporting designer stubble, says he doesn’t need to work to provide for his family, but he was seeking a role in life to boost his self esteem.

• “A man needs to work,” Kian explains, as he chats with the Sunday World in Dublin’s Clarence Hotel. “You need to have some sort of self-worth. You can’t just sit at home for the rest of your life doing nothing.
• “What I achieved is incredible and I’m not trying to do better than Westlife with my solo album, anything but that.
• “I’m doing the album because I got the offer after I’m A Celebrity. And, even though I wasn’t the lead singer in Westlife, I felt that I’d be crazy in the head not to take the |opportunity.”

The phenomenal success of Westlife has given Egan financial security, but he does admit to losing a lot of money in property investments.

Kian reveals: 

• “I’m not in a position where I feel I have to go out and make ‘x amount’ of money to continue life. I could sustain a lifestyle on what I’ve done already, even though it might not be the lifestyle I’m living now.
• “I’m lucky my kids will never have to worry about having a roof over their heads, but in saying that I made a lot of poor investments. I bought a lot of houses in Sligo that were €350,000 each and are now worth €160,000.

• “I bought them at the prime and I’m taking the hit. I’ll hold on to them for as long as I can. Like everyone else, I’m hoping for the turnaround, if it ever comes.”

The pop idol was a huge hit on I’m A Celebrity, and it has made him a bigger star in the U.K. than in his days with Westlife. The offers of work are flooding in.

He even got the chance to interview his old boss Simon Cowell on TV, a challenge he found daunting.

• “I was quite nervous about it,” Kian admits. “Apparently he wasn’t going to do the interview until he found out it was me that was doing it, so that was extra pressure.

But I spent an hour with him before we sat in front of the cameras and in the end it was quite relaxed.”

Cowell was very impressed with Egan’s performance.

• “Simon said to me, ‘I see big things for you kiddo... in the TV world’,” he laughs.
• Away from the spotlight, Kian has been trying to spend as much time as he can with his wife Jodi and their two-year-old son Koa.

He says: 

• “It’s been crazy since Christmas because Jodi is also doing The Big Reunion with Girl Thing. We were passing ships in the night for a while and had to leave Koa with a nanny. It’s intense and pretty full on for the two of us.
• “Now I get up early in the morning and spend as much time as I can with Koa before I have to run out the door. And when I comehome in the evening I make sure I’m cooking his dinner and I’m putting him to bed.”

Kian and Jodi have a strong marriage and are clearly very much in love, but he does admit that they fight like every couple.

• “We’re no different to other people, of course we argue,” he says.
• “There are feelings and emotions and we take it out on our best friend when we get p**sed off in life. I take it out on Jodi if I’m having a bad day and she takes it out on me. We’re not perfect.”

And who backs down?

• “I do,” he laughs. “I go, ‘c’mon, this is nothing, get over it’. We are both quite emotional people and we genuinely love each other.”

Kian Egan’s new album, Home, will be released next weekend.

Source: www.sundayworld.com