Brian Harvey
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- For the American musician of House of Freaks, see Bryan Harvey (musician).
Brian Lee Harvey (born on 8 August, 1974, in Edmonton, London) was the former lead singer of UK pop/dance band East 17.
Harvey was initially slated to be a backup singer and dancer for the band but during the initial recording session Brian was heard singing along by the recording staff and was promptly instated as the lead singer of the band.
His vocal style emulated R&B and New Jack Swing vocalists from the U.S.A but with a unique flavour closely followed by Craig David, his vocals put him into a position of the bands frontman or main member which was shared with the bands creator, writer, instrumentalist rapper and singer Tony Mortimer.
Throughout the course of the band the two leads had many disagreements, from how to vocalise songs to content and behaviour in public, Brian was seen as an outspoken R&B badboy while Tony was a highly spiritual though sexual rapper and writer and this tore the band between spiritual pop/hip-hop (Tony's writing) and R&B (Brian, John and Terry) which would eventually lead to Tony leaving the band and Brian becoming the only lead singer.
He was sacked from the band after making comments in a radio interview that appeared to condone the use of the drug Ecstasy. He eventually rejoined the band under the rebranded name of E17.
After E-17, Brian Harvey signed to Edel Records as a solo artist and like Tom Jones was an UK artist that collaborated with Wyclef Jean and his Refugee Allstars production set-up.
Since then he has taken part in the fourth series of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, leaving after an argument with Janet Street-Porter.
He once dated actress Danniella Westbrook and was married to dancer Natasha Carnegie with whom he has a daughter, Tegan. Currently he is dating model Emma B.
On 12 December, 2001, he was attacked in a club car park by a group of youths and hit in the head with a machete. Though the attack was serious but not fatal, it was one of a series of events that have earned Harvey a reputation for being one of the unluckiest figures in pop.
In May 2005, after being diagnosed with clinical depression, Harvey apparently took a number of overdoses of sleeping tablets and was hospitalised. On 31 May, 2005, he was readmitted to hospital in a critical condition after doing the un-doable - according to his PR "he fell under the wheels of his Mercedes Benz motor car, whilst driving" - he was actually reversing and looking out of the open door at the same time, and got dragged under.
A documentary about Brian's attempts to rekindle his music career, and recover from his car crash, was aired on BBC Television on the 13 December, 2005.