{"id":8285,"date":"2025-11-02T00:19:34","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T00:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/?p=8285"},"modified":"2025-11-02T00:19:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T00:19:36","slug":"teenage-heartthrob-who-suffered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/?p=8285","title":{"rendered":"Teenage heartthrob who suffered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In the 1970s, few frontmen shone brighter than <strong>Brian Connolly<\/strong>, the blond, charismatic voice of <strong>The Sweet<\/strong>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>who ruled glam rock with hits like <em>\u201cThe Ballroom Blitz\u201d<\/em> and <em>\u201cBlock Buster!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The band sold over 50 million records and scored 13 UK Top-20 singles, defining an era of glitter and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Born <strong>Brian MacManus<\/strong> in Scotland in 1945, he was abandoned as a baby and later discovered he was the half-brother of actor <strong>Mark McManus<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fame came fast \u2014 and so did the pressure. \u201c<strong>Gradually, it just got out of hand,<\/strong>\u201d Connolly admitted of his drinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 1979, he\u2019d left The Sweet, but his solo career stalled as his health declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After suffering heart attacks in 1981, he kept touring despite paralysis and financial struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His final comeback in the mid-\u201990s ended tragically when he died in 1997, aged 51.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His story remains one of <strong>brilliance, struggle, and unbreakable spirit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the 1970s, few frontmen shone brighter than Brian Connolly, the blond, charismatic voice of The Sweet, who ruled glam rock with hits like \u201cThe Ballroom Blitz\u201d and \u201cBlock Buster!\u201d The band sold over 50 million records and scored 13 UK Top-20 singles, defining an era of glitter and energy. Born Brian MacManus in Scotland&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8287,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285\/revisions\/8287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}