EXCLUSIVE: Former heartthrob in boy band East 17, John Hendy’s powerful new memoir details his rollercoaster time in the band, the effects of fame and his return to everyday life
John loves pints with his roof mates – but admits there’s nothing like performing on stage
Previous East 17 member John Hendy has released a seminal memoir about his life and time in the chart-topping ’90s band – and reveals he has returned to her pre-popstar job.
The now heavily tattooed 55-year-old was a young roofer when he rose to fame with Brian Harvey, Tony Mortimer and Terry Coldwell, selling 20 million singles worldwide and touring in world.
And while he loved hanging out with A-listers and being flown around the globe at the height of their fame, he admits, speaking to us from his handyman’s van: “I feel more at home in the pub, having a pint and a few laughs with the other roofers. I prefer my life now – it’s less hectic!”
Thirty-four years after their first single, the former boyband hunk – who now calls Epping home – has released a new autobiography, Stay, Just for Another Day, detailing his life as one of the so-called bad boys of nineties pop.
It begins with a glimpse of his tough but loving childhood in a flat in Walthamstow, then somewhat less gentrified in east London, where dad “raised him on his own” after his mother left when he was about five.
It was a very different set-up to Hendy’s life with his partner, tattoo artist and influencer Nina, and their children Aaliyah, 8, and Usher, 7.
“I don’t think any mother wants to abandon their children. But looking back, she wasn’t happy with my father and didn’t want us kids growing up around that.”
He lost touch with her until, aged 16, he saw his grandmother walk into a shop on the high street – and she arranged a meeting.
“She didn’t recognize me! I had been this blonde-haired, blue-eyed little boy, and now I was this big teenager with earrings and a shaved head. My kid just broke.”
When he went around the next day to surprise his mother at her home, he says, “She burst into tears. We talked about why she left… I never, ever held it against her, but then I understood why it happened. She wanted to protect us.”
“She worked all the hours God sent – she sliced salmon in a factory,” he continues. “But I also remember going round to her flat on a Friday night and she was running around in her knickers getting ready to go to a club.
“She would let me have a drink and smoke. I think if she had brought me up she wouldn’t have done that – but because she hadn’t seen me for so long, she let me do those things. And I remember there was that smell of salmon too!”
Hendy had a close bond with her father, but unfailingly remembers being sent to her grandparents’ house every weekend – “to give my father a break, I think!”
He was just 16 when fame came knocking, in the form of his best mate Tony Mortimer, who suggested they cut some tracks together one day. “But it was never about becoming famous at the time,” he says. “It was literally just to make music.”
The couple met Pet Shop Boys’ dancers at a party one night who suggested they form a band and exchanged phone numbers.
Seven months later, the EastEnd boys received a call from The Pet Shop Boys’ manager, Tom Watkins, asking to meet them at his quaint Maida Vale home.
“Where we lived was pretty rough,” Hendy recalls. “This place in Maida Vale was… posh! It was crazy too – Tony loved Mickey Mouseso his place was just filled with decorations, teddy bears and pictures of Mickey Mouse everywhere you looked. And they weren’t from a corner store, you know what I mean?!”
Tony, who died in 2020, quickly told the boys that this wouldn’t work with just the two of them, so they turned to Terry and Brian, who they went to school with, and East 17 was born.
They burst onto the scene just a year later Take it – and filled a gap in the market.
“They weren’t going anywhere at the time (ha!), these pretty boys. So we came in and we were the edgy, slightly harder, street-smart boy band.”
Their bad boy image was fueled by headlines including: “East 17 is here – lock up your daughters! but according to Hendry we weren’t that bad but we weren’t that good either”.
Recalling life when they realized they were bonafide stars, Hendy says life literally went from ‘zero to 100 miles an hour’.
“I came down from the roof one day after signing our first record deal and said to my cousin, ‘Oh, I’m not doing roofing anymore. We’re signed’. He burst out laughing and said, ‘Yeah, right’.”
“I said, ‘Dude, you’re going to see me on Top of the Pops one day. I remember all the roofers were crying with laughter. Five, six weeks later we were on Top of the Pops performs House of Love.
“But you’re not on vacation and relaxing. It was, get on the plane, leave the plane, take the car to the hotel, do all this promo. We were one of the hardest working bands. Sometimes it felt like we were doing the same interview, 40 times in one day.”
So there was no sex, drugs and rock n roll? “Sex, not too much. A lot of female attention, yes. We’d smoke some weed. Rock and roll, yes – we worked hard, but we also partied hard.
“When we had to go into a radio station for an interview and our heads were hanging off, we used eye drops and put on sunglasses.”
Standout moments from those crazy days include performing in the middle of Moscow Square surrounded by Russian guards after filming a Pepsi commercial. “I mean, a Pepsi ad? You know you made it.”
Another met Phil Collins backstage at a gig, which was “the picture of Terry’s old man, a lovely, down-to-earth fellow – a proper Cockney.”
Then there was Elton John’s infamous 50th birthday party in 1997, held at London’s Hammersmith Palais, where “there were so many A-listers, we were like kids in a candy store.”
A little overwhelmed, Hendy took herself to the bar for a quiet drink – and ended up chatting to the Hollywood actor, Lawrence Fishburne because, he laughs, “it was that kind of party!”
At a concert in Germany with a lot of other girl and boy bands, he remembers that they were all told to stay in their dressing rooms because Mariah Carey was there and “she didn’t want anyone to make eye contact with her”.
The band’s spectacular run came to an equally spectacular end in 1997, after Brian admitted to a radio station that he was taking ecstasy, causing widespread outrage. He was subsequently shown the door, prompting lead songwriter Tony to quit as well. Soon after, it was all over.
Subsequent reunion attempts have had varying degrees of success – one in 2006 ended after Tony slapped Brian for showing up late to a meeting.
But Hendy, who works for a roofing company but is in the process of setting up on his own, has no regrets. “It was an incredible time. It’s never going to happen again – we tried to reunite but… maybe it was too soon.
“Being on stage is still the best feeling in the world. It’s an adrenaline rush – nothing else comes close.”
Stay, Just for Another Day can now be ordered worldwide through Waterstones and all booksellers. It will be released on October 27, 2026.
