McFly star reveals he actually joined Busted first — but was kicked out after 24 hours in the band

THE 2025 Busted vs McFly battle of the bands is on its way — but things could have been very different.

One star almost ended up in the rival band — but only lasted for 24 hours after getting booted out.

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It’s hard to believe it, but The Voice judge Tom Fletcher was one of the original members of Busted but soon got shown the door.

The budding star auditioned for the group alongside Charlie Simpson but fate formed its own version of pop history.

Musician Tom, 39, was gutted to learn the record label had changed their mind and only wanted a trio.

The singer told The Jonathan Ross Show in 2014: “I got told I was in then a couple of days later on Halloween I got a call from a manager saying they’re going to stick with the three of them.”

In 2003, Tom joined musical forces with Danny Jones and McFly was born – named after Back to the Future‘s Marty McFly.

He has written 10 UK number-one singles and 21 top-ten singles and is credited as having written songs for One Direction, Busted, The Vamps and 5 Seconds of Summer.

The It’s All About You singers became the youngest band to have an album reach the top of the charts.

In February 2024, Fletcher and his McFly bandmate Danny Jones joined The Voice UK as judges.

The duo replaced Olly Murs on the panel to sit on a brand-new spinning double chair.

The duo have joined country superstar LeAnn Rimes alongside Sir Tom Jones and Will.i.am.

Tom said previously about chair-sharing with his bandmate: “There hasn’t really been any disagreements but we only get 90 seconds to make our choice, so sometimes we might second guess ourselves, whilst trying to figure out what each other are thinking.

“You never want to talk over someone’s performance, so we’re trying to work out each other’s facial expressions.”

If that’s not impressive enough, McFly also own British independent record label, Super Records.

Busted and McFly are going head-to-head on a joint tour which will see them battle it out to be crowned the best band.

The news comes a decade after McFly, featuring Tom, Danny, Harry Judd and Dougie Poynter, joined forces with Matt Willis and James Bourne to form McBusted — releasing a Top Ten album and touring the world.

But the supergroup split when Charlie decided to rejoin Busted, ten years after making his exit.

The McFly drummer said: “To be honest, these guys have obviously had their 20th anniversary and rinsed that and I think they’re a bit short on ideas, so they needed us and we felt charitable.”

Tom added: “We said, ‘We’ll save you again’. We did it once with McBusted.”

Tickets will go on sale on Friday, October 18, for the 14-date tour, which will kick off in Birmingham on September 16 next year.

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Louis Wood