‘rushed to A&E<\/a>‘ just days after undergoing surgery as he developed severe sepsis due to complications.<\/p>\n![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Capture_e18467.jpg\")
Pic: Instagram<\/p>\n
In February 2024, he said: ‘I had developed severe sepsis, a life-threatening infection that would require immediate emergency surgery to rectify the problem and basically save my life.’<\/p>\n
After recuperating from his illness, Mark embarked on the Wild Dreams Tour with Westlife in 2021 but fell seriously ill again with pneumonia and was forced to pull out of the remainder of the tour.<\/p>\n
Later in 2022, he developed ‘a very large incisional hernia’ and required yet another operation to ‘fix it’, adding: ‘This would be my fourth major surgery since the start of it all, but I had no option.’<\/p>\n
Nicky said the band will \u2018miss him dearly\u2019 on stage and hope he comes back soon.<\/p>\n
\u2018And we are, you know, we can’t wait for Mark to be back. We miss him dearly, and we really hope he comes back soon.<\/p>\n
\u2018So, you know, he’s obviously said he’s not going to do this tour. So if you read between what he said\u2026but if something changes\u2026100% I mean that would be, like a reunion in itself. It would be amazing.\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Georgina](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Capture_7aaf0c.jpg\")
Pic Nicky Byrne\/Instagram <\/p>\n
The Dubliner said there will be a few changes to their world tour now that they\u2019re all fathers.<\/p>\n
\u2018The way we always work it now that we’re older gentlemen with children and stuff like that in schools, and like my boys are doing the Leaving Cert, for example.<\/p>\n
\u2018So we were in control of our own destiny that we don’t miss things that we can avoid missing, i.e. school exams, birthdays, if we can avoid it that type of thing.<\/p>\n
\u2018We like to do, like, three weeks no longer than that away, and then maybe a month at home, three weeks away, a month at home. So that’s where the podcast for me has filled my time. I’m really thoroughly enjoying that. I’m hoping to keep that going.\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Nicky](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/nicky.jpg\")
Nicky Byrne brings his family to see Leeds United. Pic: Nicky Byrne\/Instagram<\/p>\n
The 47-year-old returned to our screens on Sunday night as he stepped in as guest judge to celebrate Dancing With The Stars 100th episode.<\/p>\n
But the star denied his stint on the RTE One was a test run, saying he only got the call from producers on Wednesday about joining the judging panel with Brian Redmond, Oti Mabuse, Karen Byrne and Arthur Gourounlian.<\/p>\n
The father-of-three said: \u2018It was a great show. It felt lively and energetic. It felt like that when I was hosting that show but no, it definitely wasn’t a test.<\/p>\n
\u2018This was confirmed on Wednesday night, to be honest with you. It was that late in the day, you know and then all of a sudden they had to turn around everything from the paddles to the graphics and everything in short notice to make it happen.<\/p>\n
![\"Nicky](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DWTS-Week-8-22th-Feb-2026_410.jpg\")
Nicky Byrne ,Oti Mabuse, and Arthur Gourounlian during the live show of RTE\u2019s Dancing With The Stars.
Pic:Kyran O\u2019Brien \/kobpix<\/p>\n
\u2018It definitely wasn’t test or an audition. No, and look, I’m about to embark on a massive tour with Westlife. It\u2019s genuinely huge and kicks off in September. It’s running for over a year, and we haven’t even looked at beyond now in saying that there’s a lot of time off in between.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018So in terms of judging, I mean, I’d like to say it won’t be the last time I’ll ever do something like. I’d be devastated if it was because I genuinely loved it but certainly not like even if you were to say next season of Dancing with the Stars, we’re busy with Westlife.<\/p>\n
\u2018Have I dropped a little kind of match to hope might spark someday on some show maybe,\u2019 he said laughing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Westlife star Nicky Byrne has shared an update to fans on Mark Feehily returning to the group ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-314779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/westlife.jpg\")
Kian Egan, Shane Filan and Nicky Byrne of Westlife attend the Royal Variety Performance. Pic: PA Images<\/p>\n