'Louis Walsh wanted me to date celebs' reveals Gemma Hayes

The singer-songwriter admitted the boyband manager wanted her to start dating other celebrities in order to boost her career.

"I had a conversation with Louis Walsh at one stage. He's a brilliant businessman and he wanted to work with me at the time," she said.

"He was saying to me, 'Gemma you need to play the game more, we need to get you out dating another celebrity, we need to get you on the scene and in the papers'.

"It was such an interesting conversation because he said 'you have the X factor', which I thought was brilliant.

Deals

"He said, 'you have the X factor, but you don't have the songs - stop songwriting and we'll employ people to write for you'.

"But what I do is write songs. I understand what he was saying, though. He deals with people who want to be superstars and he couldn't understand why I said no to that," she added.

Gemma, who has had success recently with a remix of Wicked Game, lives in London with her husband Stuart Musgrave and their 18-month-old son Max.

"I'm loving being a mum, little Max has broken my heart wide open," she said.

"There is no competition - in the battle between my career and looking after him, he wins hands down."

The Tipperary native previously lived in Los Angeles for five years before moving home.

"It's funny because when I moved to LA, Ireland was in the middle of the boom and everyone had fancy handbags and when I came back you could feel the sense of devastation in the air," she told Miriam O'Callaghan on RTE Radio 1.

"I moved back because my work visa ran out and I didn't have a record deal.

"It was a really scary time, leaving the sunshine behind to go back to a country that was deep in a recession to try and build up my career on my own from the ground up again," she added.