In 2010, Ronan Keating and his then-wife, Yvonne Connolly, were preparing to move into a new home just outside Dublin, Ireland.
The pair had met through friends before Ronan found fame with pop group Boyzone, and married in April 1998, welcoming three children together: Jack, Missy, and Ali.
But as Yvonne, then 46, packed the final boxes for the move that year, she made a discovery that would blow her life apart.
Who was Ronan’s first wife?
For a while, the Irish model and TV personality had sensed a shift in her marriage. Then she found phone bills showing calls from Ronan’s phone to an unknown number.
Suspicious, Yvonne called the number to discover it belonged to then 26-year-old Boyzone backing dancer called Francine Cornell.
“She knew something was going on, and she got hold of his phone records and called my number,” Francine would later tell The Sun.
“From my voicemail, she got my name – that’s how she found out. Ronan tried to deny it all at first. He said I was a dancer from the tour, and we were just good friends.”
Ronan and Francine weren’t just good friends at all. They’d been having an affair.
Days later, Ronan broke things off with Francine, but Yvonne would get in touch with her a month later.
Is Ronan Keating still with his wife?
“I just needed answers. I just needed the truth, and I needed to make sure stories collaborated,” Yvonne revealed later on Brendan O’Connor’s Cutting Edge.
“It was very hard to figure out who you can trust. So this was the answer to it. I was going to meet this girl, have a quick 20-minute conversation, and we’d be done and dusted.
“And in fairness to her, she came and met me. But the 20-minute conversation turned into a couple of bottles of wine.”
“After a few hours, I realised she needed it as much as I did and I know it sounds very dramatic… I think we both got something from it.”
“When I look back, this is what it all boils down to: it was basically two girls in love with the same boy who, over a five-hour conversation, realised that that boy was not who we thought he was.”
While Yvonne and Ronan tried to patch up their relationship, they ultimately confirmed their separation in April 2012.
Speaking on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories that same year, Ronan candidly reflected on what had happened.
“I had spent so long trying to be the perfect husband. I woke up and decided I didn’t want it,” he said. “I was wrong. I made a choice and, because of that choice, there were devastating effects in people’s lives.”
“We were on tour, and when you’re in that circle, it’s a bubble. It’s not real. I was wrong. I tripped up. The pain that I caused people has been devastating.”
In the interview, the star also discussed what he told his and Yvonne’s children.
“I was honest. They’re your kids, you have to be, and with something like this, they were going to find out anyway. As a parent, you’re never wrong in your children’s eyes. So you feel like a failure.”
Who is Ronan Keating’s Australian wife?
Ronan went on to meet Australian TV producer Storm Uechtritz on the X Factor Australia. The pair would marry in August 2015 and go on to have two children: a son, Cooper, and a daughter, Coco.
In a 2016 interview with HuffPostUK, Ronan – who returns to Australian TV screens on The Voice in 2025 – was asked about the hardest lesson he’d learned.
“Not to take myself so seriously,” he replied. “I feel like I’ve lived my life the wrong way round in some ways. I tried to be an adult when the rest of Boyzone were doing it right, and enjoying being young lads.
“I got married too young, when I didn’t really know myself properly, and made mistakes. Of course, if you’re feeling optimistic – see above – you realise it’s all a path to get to where you are today. But I gave away my youth voluntarily, I think. That was my biggest mistake, which I’ll never make again. You have to live these years, they’re not coming back.”
That same year, in an interview with the Telegraph, Ronan reflected on his past once again, saying, “Nobody should have an affair. If you’re man enough to have the balls to go home and say, ‘Sorry, this isn’t working anymore, ’ that’s the ideal situation, isn’t it? But we’re weak. We don’t do that. So yes, I hurt people and I am sorry for that hurt, but the outcome is I found Storm and I’m very grateful. But I’m saying I’m sorry.”
Ronan went on to claim some of his quotes were either “twisted” or “fabricated”, elaborating more in a lengthy Facebook post, clarifying his comments.
“I do not regret the end of my marriage, it’s what I wanted,” the star wrote. “There is a lot more to it than an affair, & obviously it was broken well before then.
“Over the years, I have kept my mouth shut & taken all the blame for the sake of my kids & my ex-wife. But enough now. After 6 years, I draw the line. There is a lot more to my situation than people will ever know & that’s the way it should be. But there are always two people in a relationship, and if it’s not working, there’s more than one good reason for it.”
What’s happened to Ronan Keating’s family?
Yvonne, who went on to find love with cameraman John Conroy, opened up about the separation in a 2013 interview with the Irish Daily Mirror, discussing how she and Ronan’s split had impacted their children.
“Yes, it has been tough on them, but kids are actually quite resilient – I have learned that. My kids are pretty sensible, and they get a lot of love,” she said.
“They still have two parents who love them dearly, and they feel that. Of course, they would love two parents living at home, but unfortunately, life hasn’t gone that way.
“But again, like me, they have moved on, they have accepted that their family is slightly different now. And they are happy.”
Of the children, she said: “They don’t know any different really – that is kind of what they have been brought up with, and although we try to protect them from a lot, you can’t protect them from everything.
“You can’t hide things from them because if you do, then the chances are they are going to read about it in the papers or someone in school is going to tell them.
“You have to be honest with them, and my priority is that really.”
Yvonne and Ronan’s children went on to embark on very different career paths.
Jack himself, now 26, entered the limelight in the UK when he appeared on Love Island, and he launched a showbiz career.
Missy, 24, a model and actress, spent time living and working in Australia before moving to the US, while Ali, 19, is a keen horsewoman.
In March 2023, Yvonne and Ronan became grandparents after Jack became a father to a little girl Maya.
Ronan’s relationship with Storm
In 2022, Ronan told The Standard how he and Storm had to work to keep romance alive between them after seven years of marriage, while being “crazy busy”.
“My wife and I are very romantic; we like to be romantic. We always try and make an effort for each other and with each other, whether it’s a birthday or Valentine’s Day, whatever it may be, just getting some time together,” he said.
“Sometimes in the madness of it all, we just go ‘we need a break from it all’ and put the kids to bed early and just chill. Sometimes you need that; it just helps.
“We all – all of us – fill our days with so much stuff when you have children and you’re chasing your tail and you’re working, [then] getting the kids to bed and you’re making dinner or whatever, the last person that’s thought of is each other and you start thinking about that every day now and then, so it’s nice to let each other know that we exist, that we are there for each other and I think we try and do that all of the time.”
In a 2020 interview, Ronan revealed how Storm had changed him
“She’s taught me to open my eyes to the things I value, like slowing down and appreciating what we have around us,” he said, as reported by BreakingNews.ie. “Before, I would fly to cities and not see them; I’d land and go to a studio, go to a hotel. But when I met Storm, we started to just stop a bit and take it in. That was amazing for me – I’d been around the world but not really seen it.
“And to love the way I love, and to have someone to love like I have with her. To watch her as a mother with the kids. She’s taught me a lot and I don’t take that for granted.”
In an emotional Instagram post celebrating a decade of marriage to Storm in August 2025, Ronan called his wife “the love of my life”.
“You’ve shown me what it is to love and be loved,” Ronan gushed. “We have had some crazy fun adventures along the way and brought two absolute rays of sunshine into this world, and watching them grow has been everything.
“To be honest, the time since we met has gone too fast, and it scares me that the next 50 years will do the same. I want to cherish every sunset with ya Stormy. Always Thinking out loud. My love my life Happy anniversary X.”
Storm responded to Ronan’s heartfelt post in the comments section, writing, “Me too… 50 years is not enough, although another 50 yrs of your dad jokes is terrifying! lol.”
What happened to Ronan Keating’s brother?
It’s clear that family is important to Ronan, who has endured his fair share of heartache. His mother passed away when he was just 21, and his Boyzone bandmate Stephen Gately died suddenly in 2009, aged just 33.
In 2023, Ronan suffered another tragedy when his brother Ciaran died in a car crash in County Mayo, Ireland.
“Just wanted to say thank you for the love and respect you have shown my family over the last 5 weeks. It has been the hardest time for us all, and everyone is trying to manage a life now without our brother (very hard to even type that),” the star shared on Instagram in August that year.
Ronan revealed more about the shock of the loss on the British talk show Loose Women later that year.
“It’s been a tough few months dealing with it because it was so quick, so immediate, so fast, unexpected,” he shared at the time.
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