"Give me a minute,” said a tearful Vernon Kay, as he called a temporary halt to his deeply emotional interview with The Script frontman Danny O’Donoghue. Danny had been speaking of his bond with former bandmate Mark Sheehan, who died at the age of 46 in 2023.

"His father passed when he was 13," Danny explained. "He was from a very rough area in Dublin as well. He had a quite a tough upbringing, but to see somebody like that in the studio being able to articulate what that meant to him for his father to leave was insane."

Mark had poured the emotional weight of losing his father into several of The Script’s songs, in particular 'If You Could See Me Now,' from band's third studio album, #3.

The song directly addresses the death of Danny's father and both Mark's parents. "He wrote that about his dad and now I'm singing that about him on stage," Danny said.

Vernon became visibly emotional when the singer opened up about his final conversation with Mark, when he was diagnosed with an illness just before his death. A still-tearful Vernon went on: "I just think that when you have that relationship with a friend, it's special."

Danny continued: "I look back on it and go, even if we didn't have that conversation, I knew. I've known him since I was 13-years-old, do you know what I mean?".

Vernon welled up as he admitted to Danny: "It's got me, that."

He attempted to carry on by introducing Danny's next track, but his voice wavered with emotion. "Give me a minute," the BBC presenter said, as he brushed away a tear.

Danny gently reassured the host, saying "oh, dude", as a still-tearful Vernon elaborated: "I just think that, when you have that relationship with a friend, it's special."

After the interview, Vernon addressed his emotional response with BBC Radio 2 listeners. He revealed: "The reason I broke down is because I've got great mates, do you know? I've got fab mates, and I can't imagine going through what Danny went through with Mark."

Mark and Danny had first worked together in Mytown, a boy band put together by Irish music mogul Louis Walsh, but the group folded after one album: "We released a song, did mediocre, released the album, didn't go too well, and then dropped by the label," Danny ruefully reflected.

He added: "For every, hundred bands signed, there's only one that really makes it. But we were probably the 99th one that didn't make it at all"

But, confident in their ability to create hit records, the two friends went on to form The Script. Danny proudly states: ”I was in the band one of the best lyricists of all time," Danny said. "They teach his lyrics in Berklee [a music college in Boston, USA] but both of us never graduated from school. I've got dyslexia."

It was eight years before the band's debut album emerged, but the reception proved instantly favourable, with their opening single We Cry gaining substantial airplay from RTÉ 2FM, Today FM and BBC Radio 1's Jo Whiley.

Every one of The Script's albums has hit the top of the Irish charts, as well making the Top 3 in the official UK chart. But the loss of Mark Sheehan, both as guitarist and as lyricist, hit them hard.

Danny admitted that he nearly went "off the rails" and turned to heavy drinking and smoking to cope with the sudden loss. He told People magazine at the time: "I'm going through a really, really tough time – I think I'm handling it in the best way I possibly can."

He added: "Guys are so s*** at talking about how they f***ing feel. All I'm here doing is trying to just show people 'Look, if you let it out, it's a lot better. If you let it out, great things can happen'. People think you let it out, bad things are going to happen. Nothing but good has happened to me in my life."

Danny pointed out that turning to drink as a way to cope with personal problems is always a mistake: "Actually, the worst thing you can do is go and drink alcohol, because what you're inevitably doing is kicking those issues down the road.

"It's b****y tough, man." He added. "I came back after I spent pretty much most of Christmas just drinking my a** off, trying to forget stuff. I came back on the 27th of December and I just said, "That's it." So I quit alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine even. You can imagine all of those on the one day. I started going to church every day, and then I work out three times a week."