Duncan James has jokingly hit out at Mariah Carey for doing a duet with Westlife instead of Blue.
The singer, 47, is celebrating the Blue marking 25 years in music with the release of their seventh studio album Reflections, and has now recalled how he once found himself drinking vodka shots with Mariah on a flight.
He told The Sun the chance meeting with the U.S. star took place while travelling from Los Angeles to London at the height of Blue’s chart success.
Duncan said: “I was sitting in first class on a flight from LA to London and Mariah Carey was opposite me. “During the flight, her assistant came up to me and said: ‘Mariah would like to have a drink with you at the bar’.
“I was like, ‘Holy f***’.
“I ended up doing shots of vodka with her at the bar while she was singing in my ear.
“I thought, ‘I’ve made it’. That was the best moment in my whole career.
“She knew who Blue was too. But then she did a duet with Westlife instead of us. It’s like, ‘Cheers, Mariah’.”
Blue – made up of Duncan, Lee Ryan, Antony Costa and Simon Webbe – did end up collaborating with major names including Sir Elton John, on Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, and Stevie Wonder on their cover of Signed, Sealed, Delivered.
Simon added to The Sun: “One minute I was signing on, then you’re getting nods from legends like Elton John. We got a tour of his place and he told us All Rise was the best album of that year.”
Duncan said: “We went into his walk-in wardrobe and we saw his glasses – rails and rails of them. I was like, ‘F****** hell this is brilliant, we’re having a right old nose around Elton’s house’.”
Blue’s new single One Last Time was written by Duncan in memory of his best friend Terry John, who died suddenly last year.
Duncan explained: “It was almost like Terry was channelling the melody and the One Last Time lyric into my head.
“This is my love letter to Terry and I’m so happy that the boys loved the song. We are all at an age now where we have lost somebody really close to us.
“We can all relate to the lyrics in this song because they are so powerful.”
Blue are set to tour Asia later this year before returning to the UK for 17 dates beginning in Oxford on 6 April, followed by shows across Europe.
Simon said: “We are four normal boys from four different corners of the U.K. and somehow we have been put together to make this band. And we haven’t just had hits in the U.K. – we have gone worldwide.”