BRIAN McFadden has a message: He and Delta have been together for years, so give their relationship the respect it deserves.
It’s not a casual fling – prime fodder for the gossip pages. It’s a mature, serious romance between soulmates that will last the distance.
“It’s been five years now – people forget that,” says the 29-year-old former member of Irish boy band Westlife and presenter of Foxtel’s Football Superstar.
“They think we’ve been together for a year or two and it’s just a fling. They forget that we’re going to get married. We have a life together.”
The romance had tongues wagging from the start. McFadden had recently split from his wife, former Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona.
They have two daughters, Molly-Marie, 7, and Lilly-Sue, 5. They separated in September 2004 and were divorced in 2006.
Goodrem had come off a doomed relationship with tennis player Mark Philippoussis.
They endured weeks of tabloid scrutiny, with nasty gossip about whether the romance started before McFadden’s split with Katona.
Goodrem’s mother Lea weighed in, advising her daughter to end the relationship to focus on her career.
Goodrem stayed strong. “Every dream I have, we’re standing side by side, we laugh, we sing, we cry,” she wrote of McFadden in the sleeve notes on her album, Delta.
It was a trial by fire that McFadden says has only made the couple stronger and more determined to make the doubters eat their words.
“People obviously came down on me, going ‘He’s not right for her’,” McFadden says.
“They don’t know anything. We’ve got this massive life together. We spend 24 hours a day together – we do music together, we live together, we do everything together.
“We’re very happy and we just learn to forget what everyone else says about us. We know what we are. We’re very happy.”
Even now, the gossip hasn’t gone away. This week McFadden revealed that he and Goodrem were delaying their December wedding because of work.
He knew the media would immediately put two and two together and make five, and think their relationship was in trouble.
“We want to get married as soon as possible but we don’t have time to get married at the moment,” he says.
“We’ll get our albums out, go tour and then take six months off, get married, and go on a honeymoon for five months and enjoy it.
“We want it to be a celebration of our love. We just want to do it right and do it for us.
“The sad thing is that we almost have to get married to prove our love to people.
“As far as we’re concerned we’re already married. I spend more time with Delta than my dad spent with my mum in the 35 or 40 years they were together.”
McFadden says the relationship with Goodrem works because they balance each other.
He’s an Aries, she’s a Scorpio. He’s an extrovert, she’s an introvert. Most importantly, they are open to each other’s ideas, especially when it comes to creating songs.
“Delta brings stability – she’s the real centred one of the two of us,” he says. “I’ll go ‘Let’s do this’ and she’ll say ‘Hang on, let’s step back, take the situation in, weigh up the options and then make a decision’.
“My whole life, I’ve never been like that. I bring a bit of spontaneity to her that she didn’t have.
“Before I met her, if she was doing a gig, she’d wake up in the morning with the sweats, panicking about it.
“She wouldn’t go outside, she would be drinking tea and steaming to prepare her voice, working herself into a frenzy.
“Her rehearsal would be great but by the time she went on she’d be a little shaky because she’d worked herself into a nervous wreck.
“I would literally rock up five minutes before, have a cigarette, have a vodka and (sing) straight out. I wouldn’t even clear my throat.
“We’ve actually now started to come to the middle a bit more. Now she doesn’t start to panic until an hour before a show and I’ve started not to drink before a show.
“We’ve helped each other to find better places as performers.”
McFadden is still haunted by the fallout of his marriage to Katona, who has admitted to drug, alcohol and bipolar disorder battles.
McFadden denied reports last year that he was seeking full custody of his daughters. In 2007 Katona accused her former husband of using the children to further his career.
“It’s a shame Brian is so desperate he has to use me and the kids for coverage,” Katona reportedly said.
McFadden hasn’t held back, either.
Last year he told News of the World: “Kerry is a disgusting human being. She manipulates people and plays the sympathy card for every stupid mistake she makes.
“Me and my family have been put through hell by her stupid games.
“It (the responsibility of being a father) never goes away,” McFadden says. “My oldest is already on the internet reading stories. She’ll say ‘I read this online about you dad’ and she’s seven years old.
“Even a few years ago, if there was a front page story about me or their mother you could turn the paper over and it was fine but now they have the access we can’t stop. That’s my biggest fear.”
It is that shared pain that McFadden believes binds him and Goodrem together.
On July 8, 2003, Goodrem, then 18, revealed that she had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The star went through intensive chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
“We’re a comfort for each other,” McFadden says. “When we write for her album, we learn to tap into old pains.
“She must have so much bottled up from her cancer period. Her career had just begun and . . . bang. There’s a lot of built-up pain there. She’s had a lot of personal pain in her life as well with family and stuff like that and I have too.”
After marriage, the next step is children, but McFadden says that is still some time away.
“I’m turning 30 next year so it wouldn’t bother me but for her, the time’s not right,” he says. “Delta’s career got stopped by cancer and I don’t want her to lose another year to being pregnant.”
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