E17's Tony Mortimer on heartbreaking reason he begged 'please don't release Xmas song'

E17 singer Tony Mortimer has shared the heartbreaking reason for his Christmas smash hit, Stay Now, and why he never wanted it released.

The 54-year-old, who was once part of one of Britain's biggest boybands, appeared on BBC Breakfast on Monday morning (December 2) to discuss his pop legacy with presenters Jon Kay and Sally Nugent

While sharing his thoughts on E17's biggest Christmas hit, Stay Now, Tony, who also wrote the song, revealed it had nothing to do with the festive season at all.

In fact, Tony wrote the single about his brother, who sadly passed away. He told Sally and Jon, how music bosses altered the single for a Christmas release.

He said: "It had nothing to do with Christmas. But they heard it, the powers that be and said that's a Christmas song that can compete with the likes of Mariah Carey. And I was like, 'oh please don't release this song.'"

Taken aback by his admission, Sally asked Tony why he felt that way. He added: "Because it was so personal. I wanted it tucked away on the album and no one would really know about it but it became the song, you know."

Talking about why he put pen to paper, the singer explained: "The inspiration originally was my brother's suicide. I drew on that to kind of write a love song around the pain of losing someone and if you could have that for one more day and what we would do and what we could do."

He added: "What I always say is what it means to the person that likes it, not what it means to me."

The songwriter previously expressed that he wanted to ensure that the single, which was released in 1994, was ambiguous, with many listeners believing it pertained to a broken romantic relationship.

He said:"I wanted to write in an ambiguous way that would mean a lot to a lot of people,” he said.

It was a bit of a risk as I didn’t know how well it was going to go down, but I wanted the lines to mean something to everyone. Yes, there’s my story in there but, more importantly, I wanted it to reach people.”

BBC Breakfast airs daily from 6am on BBC One.