EXCLUSIVE: Former heartthrob in boyband East 17, John Hendy’s powerful new memoir details his rollercoaster time in the band, the effects of fame and his return to the day job
John loves pints with his roofing pals – but admits there’s nothing like performing on stage
Former East 17 member John Hendy has released a tell-all memoir of his life and times in the chart-topping 90s band – and reveals he has returned to his pre-popstar job.
The now heavily–tattooed 55-year-old was a young roofer when he shot to fame with Brian Harvey, Tony Mortimer and Terry Coldwell, selling 20 million singles worldwide and touring the world.
And though he loved hanging out with A-listers and being flown across the globe at the height of their fame, he admits, speaking to us from his workman’s van, “I feel more at home at 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 an insight into his tough but loving childhood in a flat in the then rather less gentrified east London borough of Walthamstow, where dad “brought him up single-handedly” after his mum left when he was around 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 mum wants to leave their kids. But looking back, she wasn’t happy with my dad and didn’t want us kids growing up around that.”
He lost contact with her until, aged 16, he spotted his maternal grandmother going into a shop on the high street – and she set up a meeting.
“She didn’t recognise me! I’d been this blonde-haired, blue-eyed little boy and now I was this big teenager, with earrings and a shaved head. My nan just broke down.”
When he went round to surprise his mum at her home the next day, he says, “She burst into tears. We talked about why she left… I never, ever held it against her, but I understood then 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’d be running around in her knickers, getting ready to go to a club.
“She’d let me have a drink and smoke. I think if she’d 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 also that aroma of salmon!”
Hendy had a close bond with his father, but remembers being sent off to his grandparents’ house each weekend without fail – “to give my dad a break, I think!’’
He was only 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 getting famous, at that point”, he says. “It was literally just to make music.”
The pair met the Pet Shop Boys’ dancers at a party one night, who suggested they form a band, and swapped phone numbers.
Seven months later the EastEnd lads received a call from The Pet Shop Boys’ manager, Tom Watkins, asking to meet them at his quirky home In Maida Vale.
“Where we lived was quite rough,” Hendy recalls. “This place in Maida Vale was… posh! It was also mad – Tony loved Mickey Mouse, so his place was just full of ornaments, teddies and pictures of Mickey Mouse, everywhere you looked. And they weren’t from a corner shop, know what I mean?!”
Tony, who died in 2020, swiftly told the boys that this wasn’t going to work with just the two of them, so they approached Terry and Brian, who they went to school with, and East 17 was born.
They burst onto the scene just a year after Take That – and filled a gap in the market.
“They were going nowhere at the time (ha!), these pretty boys. So, we came in and we were the edgy, slightly tougher, street-smart boy band.”
Their bad boy image was fed by headlines including, “East 17 are 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 realised they were bonafide stars, Hendy says life literally went from ‘zero to 100 miles an hour’.
“I came down off the roof one day having signed our first record deal and saying to my cousin, ‘Oh, I’m not doing the roofing any longer. We’ve got signed’. He burst out laughing and said, ‘Yeah, right’.”
“I said,’Mate, you’ll be seeing me on Top of the Pops one day soon’. I remember all the roofers crying with laughter. Five, six weeks later, we were on Top of the Pops performing House of Love.
“But you’re not on holiday, chilling out. It was, get on the plane, leave the plane, get 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 was there no sex, drugs and rock n roll? “Sex, not too much. A lot of female attention, yes. We’d smoke a bit of weed. Rock and roll, yeah – 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’d use eye drops and get the sunglasses on.”
Standout moments from those crazy days include performing in the middle of Moscow Square surrounded by Russian guards, after filming a Pepsi advert. “I mean, a Pepsi ad? You know you’ve made it, then.”
Another was meeting Phil Collins backstage at a gig, who was “the image of Terry’s old man, a nice, down-to-earth guy – a proper Cockney.”
Then there was Elton John’s infamous 50th birthday party in 1997, held at the Hammersmith Palais in London, where “there were so many A-listers, we were like kids in a sweet shop.”
Slightly overwhelmed, Hendy took himself off to the bar for a quiet drink – and ended up chatting to Hollywood actor, Lawrence Fishburne because, he laughs, “it was that kind of party!”
At a gig in Germany with lots of other girl and boy bands, he remembers them all being 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 took ecstasy, causing widespread outrage. He was subsequently shown the door, prompting lead songwriter Tony to quit, too. Shortly after, it was all over.
Subsequent reunion attempts have had varying degrees of success – one in 2006 ended after Tony punched Brian for showing up late to a meeting.
But Hendy, who works for a roofing company but is in the midst of setting up on his own, has no regrets. “It was an incredible time. It’s never going to happen again – we did try to reunite but… maybe it was too early.
“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 is available to order now worldwide through Waterstones and all bookshops. It will be released on October 27, 2026.
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