When Chris Moyles pressed him to say whether the members were living separate lives or simply not in a good place, Willis mapped out the dynamics between him and James Bourne versus Simpson.
“James is my best friend in the world,” Willis shared. “We’ve been best friends since we were 16 and throughout that time, we were still best mates but didn’t see Charlie. He was kind of like Voldemort, he who shall not be named, for about 9 years. And then he strolls back into our lives and he’s been there ever since.”
Willis described Simpson’s return as “very weird,” noting that Simpson reconnected after the news broke that Willis and Bourne were planning the supergroup tour McBusted with McFly.
“I went to his house—because James talked to him because we were going to do McBusted and Charlie got in touch and was like, ‘don’t do that because I might want to be coming back,'” Willis explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that before actually. But we were like, ‘we’re doing it now. We’ve booked a tour!'”
Despite the clash in timing, the lines remained open. “The door was open and so we started to have chats with him and then we went round his house, and I hadn’t seen him for like 8 or 9 years and it was very weird,” Willis recalled.
Turning to the atmosphere in the room during their first sit-down meeting after nearly a decade apart, Willis acknowledged there was a palpable tension.
“It was kind of a bit like of a power battle,” Willis noted. “It was a, ‘who holds the power here? I think we all kind of do.’ But after an hour it was great. It was all good.”
