Shane Lynch made the emotional admission over the weekend, revealing that the four remaining members of Boyzone stayed overnight in the church with Stephen, so that he wouldn’t be alone.
According to Shane, Stephen had never liked the dark, and his mum worried about his body being alone in the church.
For that reason Shane, Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy and Mikey Graham decided to camp out next to the coffin the night before the funeral.
‘We got our sleeping bags, the priest came in with some wine for us and at about 12 o’clock at night we were starving hungry,’ said Shane during his interview with Fern Britton on Sunday.
‘We didn’t think of food but then there was a knock on the church door and no word of a lie, but in came Daniel O’Donnell with a load of fish and chips.
‘We sat and ate and laughed and joked and just told amazing stories, about Steo. It was an amazing thing to do, a magical thing to do.
‘We saw him off with joy and not sorrow’.
Ronan admitted the night had special significance because it was the last time they would all be together as a five.
Stephen passed away in October 2009 aged just 33, suffering from a congenital heart defect.
In the wake of his death, Daily Mail journalist Jan Moir received a huge backlash, after suggesting that Gately had died from a dangerous lifestyle involving drugs, rather than natural causes.