Oasis tour of US hit as singer pulls out

Liam Gallagher, lead singer of the chart-topping group Oasis and enfant terrible of the rock world, has pulled out of the band's three-week tour of America at the last minute.

He caused a stir at London's Heathrow airport yesterday when he refused to board a plane with the rest of the band to fly to Chicago.

Instead, he caught a taxi back to the sumptuous house in St John's Wood, north London, which he shares with his fiancee, Patsy Kensit. Posing on his front steps in shorts, he said: "I don't care about the tour. I am sick of living my life in hotels. I need to be happy.

"The house has just been sold and we have got to be out by the weekend. I am not going around touring the US when I've got nowhere to live."

He said his colleagues in the band, including his brother Noel, would have to manage without him."The band are going to try and do it without me. If they can't do it without me, I guess I'll come back," he said.

A spokesman for Creation Records, the band's record company, said last night that Liam was "definitely not" leaving the band, but had pulled out of the tour at the last minute because he had been diagnosed as having laryngitis.

"Liam originally intended to go on the tour with the others. He wasn't going to sing, he was going to go along for support. At the last minute, he was called away from the airport to attend to a problem at home," said the spokesman.