In the 1980s there was no bigger “boy band” than Wham! George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were the imaginary boyfriends of millions of teenage girls who would sing along to songs such as “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, “I’m Your Man” and “Freedom”. As Wham! the two men toured the world, becoming big not only in the UK but the lucrative United States too, and even made history by playing a concert in China, back then an honour bestowed on very few Western groups. By the time they decided to break up, they were so popular that their final concert was held at a packed-out Wembley Stadium and women wept in the audience as it became apparent that this was indeed goodbye.
However, while George Michael was desired by legions of female fans, in reality he was only ever publicly attached to three women: actress Brooke Shields, model Pat Fernandez and make-up artist Kathy Jeung. The reason for this is now clear. George was keeping a secret from the world: he is gay.
After the members of Wham! had gone their separate ways, George Michael went on to enjoy huge success as a solo artist; and his “I Want Your Sex” video, co-starring then girlfriend Kathy Jeung, became one of the most controversial clips ever made. Naked under discreetly placed sheets, the singer is seen blindfolding his partner and later writing the words “Explore” and “Monogamy” on her back.
The video made it look as though George was happily heterosexual, but in real life he knew he was attracted to men and often wondered if it was possible he could be bisexual. This theory was put to the test after meeting the man who became one of the biggest loves of Michael’s life, the fashion designer Anselmo Feleppa, and a deep friendship endured for two years until Anselmo sadly died in 1993, leaving a large gap in Michael’s life, which some say has never been filled.
Rumours started to circulate that George had been romantically involved with Feleppa during their friendship, though he refused to confirm it in public, but he did “come out” to his parents in a letter written shortly after his close friend’s death. For the next five years George publicly kept a low profile on the dating front. He had owned a house in Beverly Hills for some time and it was a well-known secret in Hollywood that he was gay, but to the world at large he was still very much heterosexual. That is until 7 April 1998 when he visited the Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills and his life changed forever.
Entering the public toilets, Michael was followed by an undercover policeman called Marcelo Rodriguez, who – unknown to George – was taking part in a sting operation. According to the singer in an MTV interview, “He started playing this game, which I think is called, ‘I’ll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I’m going to nick you!’”
Within minutes of beginning the game of peep show in the toilet, George Michael was arrested for engaging in a lewd act and was eventually fined $810 and sentenced to eighty hours of community service. He had been well and truly outed to the world, and his arrest and true sexuality were now open for all to see. George was mortified but ultimately the incident was a freeing experience, enabling the singer to be himself for the first time in his adult life. Indeed, he took the entire event in good spirit and, instead of hiding, actually made fun of it in his video for the song “Outside”, which featured men dressed as policemen, kissing in public.
The video amused fans but outraged arresting officer Rodriguez, who claimed the video had mocked him. He also insisted that George Michael had slandered him in interviews, and was so upset that the matter went to court, only ending when it was determined that as a public official, Rodriguez was not entitled to recover damages for the distress he had suffered.
The public toilet incident was the end of George Michael’s days as a secret homosexual and he was now free to enjoy life as the partner of Kenny Goss, his long-time boyfriend. Unfortunately, the pair broke up after a series of other scandals hit the headlines during the latter part of the 2000s . . .
In 2006 George Michael caused a hold-up in a London street when he reportedly fell asleep in his vehicle at some traffic lights. He was arrested for possession of class C drugs, and then, later in the year, he was accused of engaging in public sex, this time on Hampstead Heath in London. His troubles did not stop there, however, as in 2010 he accidentally drove his car into the front of a Snappy Snaps photography shop in North London and was charged with possession of cannabis and driving while unfit. After pleading guilty he was sent to prison on 14 September for eight weeks (although he eventually only served four). He also had to pay a fine and was slapped with a five-year ban from driving.
In early 2011 George Michael spoke about his prison sentence on Chris Evan’s BBC Radio 2 breakfast show. Explaining that he believed it was karma, he admitted that he felt he did deserve to be punished: “It’s so much easier to take any form of punishment if you believe you actually deserve it, and I did,” he candidly said.
Although initially sent to the notorious Pentonville Prison in London, Michael was eventually transferred to Highpoint open jail in Suffolk, where he is said to have given his autograph to every prisoner and staff member who asked for it. He also signed a guitar for an inmate and when he realized that he was signing on the tenth day of the tenth month of the tenth year of the new millennium, it became a poignant moment. “It’s like the clock rolling round to the end of something,” he said. “Tomorrow I start again.”
After his experience of prison, George Michael kept a pretty low profile, working on new music and planning his “Symphonica” tour. Unfortunately his world was rocked once again towards the end of 2011 when he was rushed to hospital in Vienna while suffering from pneumonia. A tracheotomy had to be performed and although his illness was played down to the public, he was on the brink of death for several weeks.
Family and friends kept a vigil at the hospital, while fans around the world prayed for his recovery. Their prayers were finally answered just days before Christmas 2011, when he was well enough to be released from hospital and travel back to London, where he gave a press conference.
Fighting back tears, George told reporters that doctors “spent three weeks keeping me alive basically . . . It was basically by far the worst month of my life.” Poignantly he added how incredibly fortunate it had been that he had fallen ill where he did, as “the hospital in Austria that they rushed me to was absolutely the best place in the world I could have been to deal with pneumonia. So I have to believe that somebody thinks I’ve still got some work to do here.”
He was right; he still had concerts to perform and he made a pledge on that cold winter’s day that he would “play to every single person who had a ticket” for the cancelled performances on his tour. His eyes watering, he then added that he intended to play a show for the doctors and staff in the Austrian hospital that had treated him during his illness. “I spent the last ten days since I woke up literally thanking people for saving my life, which is something I’ve never had to do before, and I don’t want to have to do it again,” he said.
He made good his word; and after giving a memorable performance at the closing ceremony of the London Olympic games, George Michael went back on the road in September 2012, choosing first to stop in Vienna to perform for those who had saved his life almost a year before. “This is one of the greatest honours of my life,” he told them, before singing the classic song, “Feelin’ Good”.
However, while performing the concerts did make George Michael feel good on the outside, inside he was very much trying to get himself back together after the trauma of his neardeath experience. He had believed that pressing on with his projects and going back on the road would enable him to recover emotionally from what had happened, but sadly he was wrong. On 29 September, after playing eleven concerts, and with many more to go, George announced that he was going to honour the remainder of the UK shows, but would have to cancel the Australian leg of his tour. In a statement on his official website he said that the cancellation “breaks my heart”.
“I have tried in vain to work my way through the trauma that the doctors who saved my life warned me I would experience,” he said, before going on to explain that the medical specialists had recommended complete rest and posttraumatic counselling, which he had previously thought he didn’t need. “I believed (wrongly) that making music and getting out there to perform would be therapy enough . . .”
Sadly it would seem that while George Michael was more than willing to go back on the road, he had completely underestimated just how much he had been through, and how difficult it would be to recover. He ended the statement by apologizing to his Australian fans and declaring that after the UK leg of the tour ended in mid-October 2012, he would “receive the treatment which is so long overdue”.
He did as he promised, and at the time of writing the singer seems to be doing well in his recovery; a new song “White Light” was nominated for awards and he has continued to look to the future. At the beginning of 2013 the future looked bright, and he tweeted to fans that he was looking forward to the New Year which he promised would be filled with great new music.