Boyzone’s Keith Duffy believed he and his son were going to die when they were caught in a rare snow blizzard in Africa.
Keith Duffy feared he and his son would die whilst filming Uncharted with Ray Goggins
The 51-year-old singer and his actor son Jay Duffy – who stars in Amazon Prime series The Wheel of Time – feature in the next season of Uncharted with Ray Goggins, and in the final episode the pair attempt to tackle one of Africa’s highest peaks of the Rwenzori Mountains located in Uganda over seven days.
Keith was terrified when he and Jay, 30, were blasted by extreme minus-20 degree snow and feared they would not survive the icy weather.
Appearing on RTE Radio 1 show Sunday with Miriam, Keith said: “I’m not gonna lie, I was terrified. More so that I had my son with me, and if I was fearful for my own life, I was more fearful for his.
“For a while every step we took could have been fatal. I mean a snow blizzard at minus-20 in Africa – I never thought there could be snow blizzards in Africa!”
The series is led by former special forces soldier Ray Goggins and is designed to test limits and push boundaries by taking well-known Irish faces out of their comfort zone and into some of the most extreme and unforgiving environments the Earth has to offer.
Despite the challenging conditions, Keith drew from his experiences performing with Boyzone to push through.
He added: “You have to allow your upset, your anger, and channel it to give you energy and ability. It’s like before you go on stage … really what you try to do is channel that into energy so that your performance is better, and it was the same on the mountain … because really thinking about it, what options have I got?”
For Keith, fatherhood is the main motivation in his life.
The No Matter What hitmaker also has Mia, 26, with his wife Lisa and he credits his autistic daughter with changing his life.
He said: “She made me a million percent a better person … When Mia was one-and-a-half years old we understood that there was something not quite right and that we would have to investigate that and find out what we were dealing with, hence the diagnosis of autism. It was that time then that I knew I had to grow up, pull up my socks; there was someone more important than me and I had to make sure to put her first.
“I think when something in your life happens, and somebody else is more important than you and your first train of thought is for someone else, it does change you. You kind of take yourself more seriously because you need other people to take you seriously.”
Keith will be reuniting with his Boyzone bandmates, Ronan Keating, Shane Lynch and Mikey Graham, this weekend for two huge concerts at the Emirates Stadium in London in what have been billed as the band’s last ever shows.
Keith cannot wait to get on stage and sing the group’s hits, but admits their Irish fans were not happy the two concerts are taking place in London at Arsenal’s stadium.
Keith – who is from Donaghmede, Dublin, Ireland – said: “The fans over here got pretty p***** saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re finishing your career in London and not Dublin’. I’m a very proud Irish man and I would love nothing more than to hang up the clogs in Dublin, but we just didn’t get the offer.”
However, Keith is hopeful that after the two London stadium shows a final goodbye concert in Dublin could be on the horizon.
He said: “Obviously they’re gonna have footage of the live show so maybe at that point in time there might be talks about coming home and doing one last show, whether it’s in Croke Park or not, one last finish up. Hang up the clogs in Dublin and I’d love that!”
