Five insist they ‘didn’t fall out’ ahead of mammoth 25th-anniversary comeback tour

It was a reunion many thought would never happen, but finally, after 25 years, all five members of boyband Five are back on stage together.

Fans were sent into meltdown when Abz Love, Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson, Sean Conlon, and Jason ‘J’ Brown revealed they were going on tour.

‘I actually do congratulate us for not falling out,’ Ritchie told Metro as they squeezed in a chat mid-rehearsal for their London O2 Arena gig.

‘We’ve got high standards, so we get on each other’s cases,’ he continued. ‘But we didn’t fall out once. We had a laugh’.

Five’s history is long and often uncomfortable, with the previous two reunions missing a member each time — Scott and J, respectively.

When they first reunited, the group told Metro how all their tensions just fell away once they were in the same room together, and that effortless friendship is clear to see.

J playfully pulls Abz’s clothes up over his mouth after the pair lock eyes while they jokingly explain they’re impossible to keep on task for too long.

This is a far cry from the late 00s when they were calling out each other in documentaries or replacing a member with a cardboard cutout to complete their final tour.

Sean shared: ‘We had a few tears in the old dressing room before we went on, because it was such a massive deal to us to get to that point.’

October 29, 2025, in Cardiff marked the first full show back for Five (notably not styled as 5ive), but it wasn’t their first time on stage together performing for an audience.

Metro was in the room — or more accurately, stadium — at Robbie Williams’ gig, when they appeared on stage together for the first time since the lights went out on their 2001 tour.

The response was overwhelming as the crowd lost their minds at Robbie pausing a rendition of Keep On Movin’ to bring out the band.

‘That was our first time being on the stage with each other in 25 years,’ said J. ‘So that was quite a crazy experience!’

The Slam Dunk singers praised the Angels hitmaker for being ‘really cool’, insisting that boyband rivalry is long gone.

Sean shared: ‘He’s been through our experience in a different way, and he could really relate to each one of us individually. It was actually much more than just a performance.

‘It was just a really, really, quite a profound experience for us as a band.’

Ritchie revealed that Robbie requested that they hang out backstage, no managers, no teams, just six former teen stars having a two-hour ‘chinwag’.

They joked about collaborating with the former Take That star, proposing a mashup to end all mashups: ‘Only Takes Five Minutes Girl’.

Here, the band once again collapsed into laughter, teasing Abz about wearing his Five-branded socks, which he proudly showed off to the camera.

While the more cynical might say this is just another cash grab reunion tour, it’s clear that any old wounds are completely healed.

There’s not even any jealousy between them, even though J seems to be getting a large chunk of attention from fans who keep posting edits of him on social media.

‘Listen, people are thirsty out here,’ Abz chimed in as J blushed, ‘We need to quench their thirst, that’s all we’re doing.’

J has seen some ‘very funny’ videos but admitted he doesn’t spend much time on social media outside of posting about Five.

‘I’ve just personally never been on it really,’ he explained. ‘So it’s just more force of habit. It’s just not something I do, but I can see from reactions from other people that it can be a little bit of a negative thing as well.

‘I was looking at more stuff when we announced that we were back together and I could see that, if you haven’t got a thick skin and strong psyche…’

The band are no strangers to being under the pressure of a spotlight, having been painted as the bad boys of pop back in the day, but at least they could avoid reading the papers.

J continued: ‘You might have 100 perfect comments and then one person, for some reason, I don’t know why, but one person will say one thing, and you can see how, if you weren’t thick-skinned enough, [it could] derail your whole day.’

Ritchie agreed: ‘The one bad comment is the one that sticks as well, it’s like you’re almost blind to the positivity.’

Their ‘head of social media’, aka Scott, added that he was really pleased to see ‘nothing but love’ for their reunion.

Not only are they showing ‘compassion’ for their trolls, Five are all in a much healthier place with each other.

That is mentally healthier, as Abz confessed rehearsals for the tour had left them ‘knackered’ with Sean revealing he ‘couldn’t walk for days’ after their first dance lesson.

Quick changes have proved a problem, with Sean apparently getting ‘special attention’ from their wardrobe lady after putting his trousers on back to front.

‘She’s always helping me get dressed; she doesn’t help the others,’ he revealed as Ritchie quipped: ‘Maybe she noticed that you’re the one that needs it most.’

‘Imagine what he’s done we don’t know about,’ joked Abz, with J suggesting he’d run out with his arms through his trouser legs.

Jokes aside, it’s clear from their enthusiasm Five have worked hard to make this comeback happen — and we can’t wait for them to keep on movin’.

Tickets for Five’s UK tour are on sale now.

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