‘He looks like a potato': every major Gallagher feud since Oasis split in 2009

The Guardian

02-07-2025

As Oasis prepare to go on stage at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris, an argument breaks out behind the scenes. The Gallagher brothers had always bickered and fought, but this argument was enough to end the band.
Noel described the moment in a statement the following week: 'The details are not important and of too great a number to list. But I feel you have the right to know that the level of verbal and violent intimidation towards me, my family, friends and comrades has become intolerable.'
Liam later alleged that the blame was placed on his drinking, but claimed he had been drinking as he always had been. 'That was my behaviour since day one, and [Noel's]. That's what made Oasis what it was,' he told the Guardian in January 2024. 'I wasn't any different, but all of a sudden, he's turned into Ronan Keating or some soft cunt, going: 'We can't have that behaviour.''
Oasis win best British album of the last 30 years for (What's the Story) Morning Glory? at the 2010 Brit awards. It is hoped that Noel and Liam will reunite to collect the award and the brothers might show some signs of reconciliation. However, Liam swaggers on stage alone and thanks the other members of Oasis individually, but not Noel, before throwing his microphone and the band's award into the crowd.
Noel and his longterm girlfriend Sara MacDonald marry and do not invite Liam to the ceremony. While on tour in the US with his newly formed band Beady Eye, Liam speculates that it was due to Noel not being invited to Liam's previous weddings. 'He goes on about how he wasn't invited to my wedding. No one was at my wedding but [the bride's] mum and my mum. Get over it, mate.'
Things escalate after Noel speaks in an interview about Oasis having to cancel their performance at V festival in 2009 after Liam had supposedly contracted laryngitis – Noel alleges this was actually due to Liam being hungover. Liam sues Noel and demands an apology, stating: 'The truth is I had laryngitis, which Noel was made fully aware of that morning, diagnosed by a doctor.' Noel apologises and the lawsuit is dropped.
In an interview with Q magazine Liam takes aim at Noel's new music and his new look. 'Listen, our kid's a mouthy fuck too. He said we had a year to come up with a band name and came up with Beady Eye. He had three and came up with the High Flying Turds. I don't know who dressed him but he looks like something out of Westlife.'
When asked about reuniting with his brother for a 20th anniversary celebration of (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, Liam says: 'I'd rather eat my own shit than be in a band with him again. He's a miserable little fuck … If the fans want it, though, I'd do it.'
Despite the strong words in December, Noel says he had been in contact with Liam that Christmas, but he also denies any chance of a reunion. 'I haven't been in touch. I last texted him at Christmas after the City match. I don't think it's gonna happen. It would be great for everyone else except me … I don't think anyone is pushing for a reunion either. Nobody ever brings it up in any seriousness; I mean, Liam does publicly, but he says a lot of things publicly. I wouldn't take anything he says seriously.'
Liam explains his complex feelings about his brother. 'I love our kid – as in the Noel that's not in a band and not in the music business and not all that bullshit that people see he is. But the band Noel? … I absolutely fucking despise.'
Fans are given fresh hope as Liam tells the Guardian: 'We could bury the hatchet for a quick lap of honour … I'd do it for nowt, but if someone's going to drop a load of fucking money, I'd do it for that too … [Then] I'd still go back to Beady Eye and Noel would go back to his thing.'
Of a reunion, Noel tells NME: 'One can never say never, because one might be skint. But I've got no intention. I'm not interested.'
Liam's band Beady Eye break up. Noel is sympathetic though perhaps with a veiled criticism of Liam, saying in December: 'I'm very fucking sad about Beady Eye, because I know they really wanted to make it work. I wanted it to work for them. I was out with Gem Archer the other night. The vibe I'm getting is that it was a shock, although not completely surprising.'
Liam develops his Twitter account as the chief forum to deliver blows to his brother. He posts a picture of him wearing a High Flying Birds backstage pass captioned: 'Keeping it in the family'. For a brief moment it seems the feud is cooling.
But Noel accuses Liam of stirring up false rumours of an Oasis reunion: 'It wasn't his pass. He wasn't there. It was my other brother's pass. If he'd had been at one of my gigs, you would've known about it because he'd have made his way on stage and started acting like a fucking gobshite. He's being a bit disingenuous to Oasis fans in the sense that he always gets their hopes up.'
Liam tweets in response: 'I see Noel Katie Hopkins Gallagher is talking out of his slack arse again go and polish your SAXAPHONE Ha ha,' ending the tweet with his new trademark, 'LGx'.
Liam airs grievances about Noel refusing to participate in an Oasis reunion, ending: 'FUCK OASIS'. This is also when he begins posting photos of his brother with the caption of 'potato' in each one, claiming 'he looks like one.' It soon becomes a familiar insult.
The documentary about the band, Supersonic, is released and Liam attends the premiere, though not without taking a swing at Noel's absence. When asked about the likelihood of Noel turning up too, he says, 'Oh no, Noel won't be here. He's in one of his really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really big houses. Probably eating tofu while having a face peel. Isn't that right, man of the people?'
Liam releases his first single as a solo artist, and further dismisses the idea of reforming Oasis. '[Working with Noel] bores the death out of me,' he says, adding that the pair had not had any contact in years.
After the bombing of Manchester Arena at an Ariana Grande concert, the One Love Manchester concert is held to honour the victims. Liam performs three songs, including Oasis's Live Forever with Coldplay. He attacks Noel on Twitter for not appearing: 'Noels out of the fucking country weren't we all love get on a fucking plane and play your tunes for the kids you sad fuck.'
In a Sunday Times interview a few days later, Noel says he wasn't asked to perform, and adds: 'Young Mancunians, young music fans, were slaughtered, and he, twice, takes it somewhere to be about him. He needs to see somebody.' More 'potato' jibes are thrown in response, with Liam alleging: 'I got proof you were asked and declined.'
Noel plays a no-alcohol show at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. Liam responds: 'I forgive you now let's get the BIG O back together and stop fucking about the drinks are on me LG x'. When Noel doesn't respond, Liam tweets: 'I'll take that as a NO then.'
After One Love Manchester, few thought the feud could get any worse. But when Noel's wife Sara MacDonald is asked if she would watch Liam's performance at Glastonbury she declines and calls Liam a 'fat twat doing his tribute act'. Noel then posts a screenshot of a message Liam sent to Noel's daughter Anaïs reading 'tell your step mam to be very careful'.
'So you're sending threatening messages via my teenage daughter now are you?', Noel wrote. 'You always were good at intimidating women though eh?' Liam apologises: 'My sincere apologies to my beautiful mum Peggy and my lovely niece Anais for getting caught up in all of this childish behaviour I love you both dearly'.
Noel speaks to the Guardian in an interview headlined with the quote: 'I liked my mum until she gave birth to Liam.'
Noel adds: 'That's not the first time he's sent texts to my daughter, or left threatening phone calls on my wife's answering machine. So when he's threatening my wife via my teenage daughter, I'm thinking, you know, if you weren't a rock star, if you were just an uncle who worked in a garage, you'd be getting a visit from the police. But because you're a rockstar, wahey, you get away with that shit.'
Noel says the incident means they are unlikely to ever reconcile. 'Because I've got one fatal flaw in my otherwise perfect makeup as a human being, which is I don't forgive people. Once you start texting my children – and his two sons have been going for her, too – and legitimise my wife being bullied on the internet, where she has to shut down Instagram accounts because of the vile shit being written about her and my daughter, then it ain't happening.'
He also uses the interview for a dig at Liam's new solo music. 'I think it's unsophisticated music. For unsophisticated people. Made by an unsophisticated man. Who's giving unsophisticated orders to a load of songwriters who think they're doing the Oasis thing … I reckon if I put my two sons in a room – one's nine, one's 11 – for about 45 minutes, they could probably muster up something better than that new single of his.'
Noel releases a demo of Oasis's Don't Stop … without Liam's vocals or guitarist Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs' riffs. As expected, Liam takes to Twitter: 'Oi tofu boy if your gonna release old demos make sure im singing on it and boneheads playing guitar on it if not it's not worth a wank'.
Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show, Noel responds to a claim that he'd turned down £100m to get Oasis back together. He says, 'There isn't £100m in the music business, right, between all of us … If anybody wants to offer me £100m now, I'll say it now, I'll do it. I'll do it for £100m.' Liam responds online with: 'I'd do it for FREE'.
Noel shares what he believes was 'the beginning of the end' for the brothers' relationship while on The Matt Morgan Podcast. He tells the story of how he donated clothes from Liam's brand Pretty Green to a charity shop before the brand launched in 2009: 'Liam gave us a load of clobber, not just me, he gave the band it. I went straight to the charity shop and left it in the shop doorway. He went fucking mental. He said, 'If you didn't fucking want it, you should have just said you didn't fucking want it, you cunt.' It was on the shop mannequin in Barnardo's a month before it launched. If push comes to shove, that was the beginning of the end.'
When asked by a fan on Twitter if there would be any Oasis hit songs featured in his new documentary, Knebworth 22, Liam is quick to blame Noel for the lack of the band's songs: 'No Oasis songs as the angry squirt has blocked them he also blocked the Oasis I sang for Taylor Hawkins tribute he's a horrible little man.'
On the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast Noel addresses claims Liam is calling for an Oasis reunion and bizarrely ends up comparing him to Puss in Boots from Shrek. 'Well, I know for a fact he doesn't want it either, but he likes to paint this picture of, you know, this little fucking guy who's sitting with his suitcase packed by the door, you know, like the little fucking cat from fucking Shrek, you know, the little fucking Spanish cat with these big fucking teary eyes. 'I'm [gonna] go and do it now for you fans. I love you.' It's like, well, fucking call me then. And he hasn't called me. And until he does, it's fucking going nowhere.'
Just months before the reunion is announced, Liam is still venting about Noel. He tells the Guardian if he could go back in time to the Paris gig that ended Oasis, he'd 'fill in' Noel and Oasis's manager. 'They threw me under the fucking bus. All my life caved in,' Liam says in a long rant, pacing around the room. 'There were 40 or 50 people working for Oasis. All of a sudden, everyone was out of a job. Meanwhile, he's off with his guitar and his wife, having a lovely time … I know I've been humbled. And thank fuck for it because it's made me a better person. But he's not. He's still going round thinking he's the man, but we'll see.'
But wait! Liam tweets: 'I never did like that word FORMER.'
Oasis write on Twitter (which by now has become X):
'The guns have fallen silent.
The stars have aligned.
The great wait is over.
Come see.
It will not be televised.'