Former Westlife heartthrob Shane Filan has confessed that his money troubles began when the boyband received their first advance at the beginning of their collective career.

Speaking to Yahoo! Finance UK, he explained that when he started recording Westlife's debut album the lads were all given some money and he ended up spending his on an extravagant car: "At 18 I bought my first car, a second-hand BMW 3 Series, for £16,000. At that stage we hadn't even released a song."

"We'd just started recording our album and we all got a few quid. I probably blew half my advance."

He also confessed that looking back now, he can't believe how successful the group was and likened their appeal to that of One Direction:

"Every year we couldn't believe it and, even when I look back on it now, to sell 14 million singles, 50 million albums and sell out arenas and stadiums, what Westlife achieved was crazy. It's like One Direction probably don't realise how big they are. They'll look back one day and think, "Holy God, that was pretty amazing."