Saturday Kitchen: Donal Skehan replaces Matt Tebbutt
Donal Skehan, a familiar face on ITV's This Morning, has shed light on a scandal involving one of his former colleagues, prompted by a recent Netflix documentary.
The culinary whizz, who is a regular feature on the daytime show, initially embarked on his career in the realm of boybands, specifically with the group Streetwize in the early noughties. Donal believed he had landed his "big break" when he was summoned to audition for music tycoon Lou Pearlman but things rapidly took a turn for the worse.
In an Instagram post inspired by the Netflix expose Dirty Pop, Donal penned: "Okay now here's a bloody throwback Thursday for you! Just finished watching Dirty Pop on Netflix, and wow what a ride it was. Back in about summer of 2005 I was wrapped up in the whole world of boybands."
"We'd spent a year forming and rehearsing and thought we'd got our big break when our band Streetwize (note the Z) auditioned for the infamous Lou Pearlman. When we got to his office in Florida, the epicentre for all things pop where bands like NSync, Backstreet Boys, O-Town, Britney and many more got their starts, we spent hours in reception to get to see him."
The statement went on to reveal: "He had god-like status down there. When we finally got to his office we all sang for him and everything went really well and we thought we were getting our big break when Lou asked us to stay on. He invited us to stay the week with him, we were wined and dined VIP Disneyland trips, private mansion tours, and exclusive looks at his bands like C-Note.", reports the Mirror.
"It all seemed like a dream come true. Little did we know, he had already made up his mind. Lou ultimately chose one of our members for another band and sent the rest of us packing! A proper early life lesson and now watching the Netflix doc it must have only been a couple of months after we left that it was revealed Lou's empire was built on lies!
"A wild ride and crazy to see it all in doc form. There were plenty of red flags in our experience and definitely a lesson that when something looks too good to be true, it probably is! How about that 2005 fashion tho!"
Photos included with the post showed a young Donal, distinguishable for his youthful appearance and spiky hairdo. Commenters were astounded by how different he looked, with one writing: "You look like you just fell out of the womb how did you have words let alone songs!"
Another quipped: "Almost baby Donal looks too cute, sorry he had to go through all that. But that's life and you made yourself a much better life later."
Despite Streetwize not achieving the desired success, Donal later joined the band Industry from 2009 until 2010. He even tried his luck at becoming Ireland's Eurovision Song Contest entry in 2008, but wasn't chosen.
Instead, he pursued a career as a chef and presented segments on popular shows like This Morning, Saturday Kitchen and the Today Show.
Meanwhile, mogul Lou Pearlman faced legal troubles. In 2008, he was found guilty of money laundering, conspiracy and making false statements during bankruptcy proceedings.
He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Pearlman passed away in jail in 2016 after orchestrating one of the largest Ponzi schemes in US history.
