Busted star James Bourne quits McFly tour in shock statement

Busted star James Bourne has announced he has quit the band's joint tour with McFly just hours before it kicks off. He is due on stage with the two bands tomorrow night, but released a bombshell statement confirming he won't be there.

In a post, James explained: "The VS tour kicks off tomorrow night in Birmingham and as excited as l've been all year for this tour to begin, I'm really sorry to say that over the last 8 days it has become clear that I am not in good enough health to play these shows :-(

"There's a lot of information I still don't have about my condition but my bandmates, management and I are unanimous in deciding that I should focus on the medical stuff for now.

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"I really hope I can be in a position to come back further down the line. It's still going to. be an amazing show and I will miss being there! See you all as soon as possible."

After years of battling the charts, Busted and McFly decided to come together for a UK tour, performing their greatest hits back to back across one massive night of entertainment.

McFly's Harry Judd shared his disappointment at James not being able to tour with them as he said: "Won’t be the same without you dude. Hope you’re back on Tour asap."

Danny Jones shared James' statement to his fans and added: "Get well soon mate." Busted bandmate Matt Willis commented: "Love you brother..."

The bands are due to kick off the show in Birmingham tomorrow night, before heading to London's O2 Arena. McFly and Busted are set to head to Cardiff, Sheffield, Leeds, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Manchester, Dublin and Belfast before bringing the tour to a close at London's O2 Arena on November 1.

Following James' bombshell news, fans have rushed to share their support as they urged him to "Get well soon." Another added: "Get well soon brother."

Someone else commented: "Aww, wishing you a speedy recovery James." A fourth wrote: "Oh nooooo JB!!!!!!!!!!! WE WILL MISSS YOUUUUU!!!! Hope you're okay."

The two bands, who previously played as McBusted, said they wanted to come together for the tour to go head-to-head in a bid to steal each other’s fans. Busted - which includes James, Matt Willis and Charlie Simpson - will tour with McFly’s Harry Judd, Dougie Poynter, Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones.

It's not the first time the bands have been on tour together - uniting in 2014 for the McBusted tour. The idea was sparked after Busted's Matt and James joined their McFly pals as special guests as they performed a number of gigs at the Royal Albert Hall.

The pair were on hiatus after Charlie Simpson quit Busted in 2005 to focus on his post-hardcore band Fightstar. Charlie then went back to Busted for a reunion tour and new music in 2015.

Last year, Harry told us: “We’ve been talking about this for years, it’s only now it’s the right time so it’s come together. The idea is that each band will perform, then we’ll come together to battle it out.

"There’ll be laser beams shooting out of guitars, and at the end some kind of winner.” James added: “I love the idea of it being a McFly show, and then they sing Bubble Wrap – and the first you see of Busted is Charlie coming down from the ceiling like an angel, singing the chorus.

“I’ve got a hundred of those ideas. I wanted to have the intro like in ET, with seven of us flying in on BMX bikes in the sky. That would be epic.”

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