Gareth Gates: Stutter nearly axed my dream of fame
GARETH Gates endured hell thanks to stuttering – now he's helping others overcome the speech impediment.
The singer has become a speech tutor because he does not want other people's dreams to be ruined like his own career in pop almost was.
A moving documentary tonight, Stop My Stutter, charts the progress of a group of young people who sign up for an intense speech therapy course led by Gareth, who found fame on Pop Idol in 2002.
And speaking to TV Biz, Gareth — a close runner-up to Will Young in the talent contest ten years ago — admits he would never have entered had he known he would have to talk on the hit ITV1 show.
He said: "I thought I was entering a singing competition — I had no idea how much speaking I would have to do.
"Once I did, it filled me with dread and fear and I had to just deal with it and do interviews.
"I probably wouldn't have even entered if I had known how much speaking was involved."
Gareth, now a tutor on the McGuire treatment programme which helped him conquer his own stutter, revealed he struggled sometimes even to say his name. He said: "It's the first thing people ask you, so the fear is already there.
"I would call myself different names like Michael, or my middle name Paul, so I'm sure there were hundreds of people when I did Pop Idol thinking, 'I thought he was called Michael or Paul'."
He would also pretend he had forgotten his school's name, preferring to look "stupid and thick rather than stammer in front of people".
Gareth, who soared to stardom on the back of Pop Idol, said at his lowest point he was on the brink of becoming a recluse.
But he eventually found solace in song, and said: "Music became my voice and I wanted to sing all the time simply because I was not able to speak, so it was my way to express myself."
Such is his new-found confidence that Gareth said he would never say no to being an X Factor judge.
In tonight's show, on BBC3 at 9pm, the participants have four days to learn how to fight their stuttering demons before making a speech in front of an audience.
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