SITTING alone in his flat in the East London borough which made him famous, Brian Harvey seems a far cry from the loveable wideboy in the back-to-front baseball cap, strutting in front of thousands of screaming girls.

“I’m right back where I started – in a basement flat in Walthamstow,” shrugs the 33-year-old father-of-one.

“Maybe this is what I needed – to come full-circle, to be as low as I can get, before I go onto the next stage, whatever that might be.”

At the height of East 17’s fame, Stay Another Day topped the charts for 16 weeks. Brian had a big house, with a double garage, and a Ferrari neatly parked inside.

But talking to him today it’s almost hard to believe he was the heart of one of the UK's most infamous pop acts. Away from the spotlight – and the tabloid headlines – he’s surprisingly quiet, reflective and very likeable.

“The papers called me everything; they built me up and they destroyed me,” he explains matter-of-factly. “I was public enemy number one for a bit. I used to sit and read what they had made me into and I hated myself for what I’d become. But then I had no-one to blame but myself.”

Brian talks easily about his numerous falls from grace but he refuses to lapse into self pity, jollying the conversation along with quick, self-deprecating wit.

It’s something he demonstrates when he talks about the comeback tour which will see him at the Liverpool Empire on Wednesday – “I’m giving it six months,. If it doesn’t work out I’m doing a plumbers’ course. I’ll be round your house fixing your U-bend.”

And again, when he talks of his fond memories of the city ...

“I remember running off the stage at the Poll Winners Party, getting straight into the back of a car and jumping out to do a show in Liverpool,” he laughs. “We were knackered, still sweating. It was one of the best shows we ever did.

“I stayed in the best room in the Adelphi that night. This time I’ll probably be in a Travelodge.”

There's something admirable about Brian’s doggedness, the easy grace with which he recounts his bittersweet tales.

“I’ve been saying next year is my year for the last 10 years,” he smiles. “I’m sick of hearing myself say it.”

Now he’s back on the road, and it seems every band of a certain age is on the comeback trail right now. Take That have a new £3 million record deal, and George Michael is threatening to drag Andrew Ridgeley on stage with him again.

“You’re only going to get one big comeback and Take That have done it,” he shrugs.

“They were in the same boat as us. You get labelled as a boy band, you’ve got a controlling manager. It was tough. I’m pleased for them. They deserve it after the way they were treated.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the music industry, you should never expect too much from it. As soon as the success stops, they drop you like a stone.”

Like Take That, the current East 17 line-up is also minus a member – rapper Tony Mortimer.

“It’s just me, Terry and John now,” explains Brian. “Tony is clearly not into R&B anymore. I’ve done my years singing his songs.

“It was all based around Tony writing the songs, and the rest of us just going along with it. I was singing songs I didn’t mean and the Press were calling me a w****r. I was sick of being called a w*****r. I was sick of being in East 17. I was sick of being a puppet.”

Even in their heyday, the band had something of a rocky relationship. This culminated in 1997 with Brian being asked to leave the band after making comments in a radio interview that appeared to condone the use of Ecstasy.

“I left,” Brian quickly corrects himself with a chuckle. “Well, I got sacked from the band for a bit, and when I re-joined Tony went.”

Depression and bankruptcy followed Brian’s dismissal. When he returned, the band never regained their former fame and when they floundered he tried to kill himself.

After years in the wilderness, he saw a chance to get back into the limelight on the hugely successful I’m A Celebrity.

But, again, things didn’t work out as he’d hoped.

He had arrived on the ITV1 show 24 hours late following the death of his grandmother, and left after just a few days.

“My gran had been ill for a while, but we had no warning that might happen. I remember saying goodbye to her, giving her her nebuliser because her breathing had been bad. I had a feeling I didn’t want to go, but she said I’d be missing out; that it could be the start of something. I gave her a kiss and left her with my sister. That was the last time I saw her.

“I came back and I tried to end it. I just couldn’t see the point any more.”

He took an overdose of sleeping tablets.

“When I woke up in the hospital, Joe Pasquale was there. He’d won the show and he’d come to see how I was.

“The doctors let him take me out for the day to cheer me up. It was weird, I was sitting in McDonald’s with Joe Pasquale eating a Filet-O-Fish, talking about why I’d tried to kill myself. It was a surreal day but he really helped me out. I can’t thank him enough for that.”

Although diagnosed with clinical depression, things seemed to be looking up for Brian after his discharge from hospital. He was dating glamour model Emma B and began to think about resurrecting his career.

Then he ran himself over in his own car.

Having opened his car door to be sick (he’d eaten three giant baked potatoes smothered in tuna mayonnaise and cheese) he fell under the car as he leant out and got trapped under the wheels as it was accelerating.

He broke his ribs, punctured his lungs and fractured his pelvis in seven places so his leg turned around the wrong way.

“After the accident, that was my lowest time,” Brian admits. “I lay in hospital asking the doctors ‘Will I die today?’.

“I was lying in the same hospital bed my granddad died in, on the same ward. I thought it was a sign.

“My mum and Emma were there every day, and I could see the tears in their eyes.

“Then I went into a coma. I woke up three weeks later.

“I was five stone, and I had huge metal poles sticking out of my body to hold me together, but I was so glad to be alive.

“Then you get to the other side of that euphoria, and you think ‘yes I’m glad to be alive, but I want to be me again. I want more than to just exist’. I suppose you get greedy really.”

Brian made a full recovery and to celebrate he took part in this year’s Making Your Mind Up, the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest. Brian was eliminated after the first round of voting.

“It wasn’t good was it, being beaten by Scooch?” he laughs. “I was standing there with Liz McClarnon and we just started laughing. It was funny.

“Liz is a great girl. I’ve met her loads of times and she’s just a lovely person.”

Brian makes clear that his affection for Liz is purely platonic, but he readily admits he is a man who has always been lucky with the ladies. As well as Emma B, he dated actress Daniella Westbrook and was married to dancer Natasha Carnegie with whom he has a daughter, Tegan.

Now he has a new woman in his life, although he’s nervous about naming her.

“Oh I don’t want to say in case it all goes wrong,” he sounds suddenly embarrassed. “She’s beautiful. I thought I was in love before, but I’ve never felt anything like this. She’s perfect.”

Is that wedding bells I hear?

“I hope so, if she’ll have me. She’s a model from Manchester. She’s 22, I’m 33. There’s a bit of an age gap.

“They asked us to do Celebrity Wife Swap. How bad has it got to be to do that? I’m not swapping her for anything, particularly not Pete Burns.

“I’d never do reality TV again. It’s great viewing – when you’re not in it.

“They’ve asked me to do Big Brother, but I’m too up and down. I’m not stable enough.

“There’s a chance I could go on and it would be the making of me, but then there’s a bigger chance it would kill me.” And then he pauses, thinks and corrects himself. “I say I’d never do it, but if they offered me £100,000 it would be hard to say no.”

Liverpool Echo