By Elliott West
“You’ll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart”.
George Michael
Introduction
Watching George Michael’s final 2012 concert at Earl’s Court the other night on BBC2, I was struck by the popularity of this pop icon and the poignancy of the performance. This man had the voice, the moves and the looks but in the end, would come to an untimely demise in 2016, aged 53, dying from heart disease. A lonely end to someone who was found dead in bed on Christmas Day, a day that his life music played for the last time. A complete contrast to his heady days in Wham in the 1980s and his subsequent solo career. George had it all but in the end, all that remains are memories and his songs.
Some say that the pop icon knew that he was dying and was getting his affairs in order. He seemed a calmer person with a twinkle in his eye as if the onus of his popularity had been lifted from him. Perhaps that’s why he assigned a percentage of his will to go towards maintaining an illuminated tree outside his Oxfordshire home so fans could come and pay their respects. George was someone who split his life between the popular star and the private person. He referred to George Michael in the third person but when he was the star, he was demanding and when he didn’t get his way, he got angry.
Love is a Drug
George Michael had two main secrets, his sexuality and his love for drugs. Although the worst-kept secret in the music industry, George still played the game and disguised his homosexuality with various girlfriends provided to him until he was finally media-outed when he was caught carrying out a lewd act while intoxicated in a Los Angeles classy hotel toilet in 1998. An incident that he was coaxed into the situation unfairly.Michael was given a £500 fine and made to carry out 80 hours of community service. An incident and outing for George that was actually a blessing in disguise because not only was his sexual preference no longer a lie but it allowed him to celebrate the revelation with a tongue-in-cheek music video called ‘Outside’ six months after the public offence. A video that had glitter balls in the urinals and a dancing policeman. A video that cemented him as a gay icon.
George Michael had a constant battle with drugs throughout his adult life. Marijuana, crystal meth and crack cocaine became substitutes to block out his tormented and lonely lifestyle at the end of his life. The star became reclusive, binging on junk food, a diet of ice cream and Coronation Street and finding his sexual kicks with male prostitutes. These kicks stemmed from anxiety and paranoia, fearful that anybody would find out anything about his private life, a constant theme in his life. It caused him to come out about his sexuality to his parents and was fuelled when he lost his partner Anselmo Feleppa from an Aids-related disease in 1993. George took the decision not to travel to be with his dying loved one, a choice that would haunt him to his dying day. A loss that would be followed by the death, four years later of his mother, Lesley Angold from cancer. Drugs numbed the pain of loss but they were a fix, not a solution. He was looking for a way out and that for George, was to sadly die. An inner turmoil was shown when he tried to jump out of a moving car in 2013, spent the night in a swimming pool, which led to hypothermia and was found unconscious in his bath after overdosing on GHB.
Wham
This was a pop duo that would be born out of a school friendship between Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael. Both shared a love of music and decided to take it one step further and form a band, a musical duo. By the age of 20, this musical factory was churning out hits for its 80s audience, producing No 1 singles, achieving global success and being the first band to play a sell-out concert in China. Yet bubbling beneath the surface was the looming reality that George was either gay or bisexual. A reality that came to stare him in the face at the age of 19. However, George was scared to come out, especially to his tough Cypriot father who owned a restaurant in North London. He turned to his best friend Andrew instead, who “only wanted him to be happy”. However, George lost his nerve and this was probably one of the main reasons, the band would go on to split in 1986 with Ridgley choosing the tranquillity of Cornwall over the glare of the music world.
George felt trapped by his inner voice questioning his choice of career path. He felt this was the wrong road to take yet in hindsight, it probably was the best move. Give up something when you are successful and don’t wait fit the bubble to burst. Yet at the time, the singer was too young and immature to realise this, choosing to flee rather than face up to his responsibilities. The journey was over for Wham, a band that had been dreamt up in Bushy in 1981 and produced commercial mainstream records from 1982 until 1986. Perhaps that Careless Whisper killed the journey. A farewell that would be played out in front of 72,000 people at their farewell concert at Wembley Stadium on Saturday, June 28, 1986. The big hair and white outfits may have disappeared but the music lives on, played constantly on nostalgia radio stations and by those same old and new.
The Next Step
Yet this singer from Finchley, born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, was far from over and quickly reinvented himself as George Michael, the solo artist. A singer that thrived on being a creative force in songwriting, vocal performance and visual presentation. A style of music that changed with the times but songs where his distinctive voice remained at their core. George always wanted to give one hundred per cent at whatever the project was and it paid off by producing catchy tunes that linger in your head and memorable music videos. The move paid off because it would lead to an accolade of recognition and awards including thirteen number-one singles in the UK, ten number-one singles in the USA, two Grammy awards, three Brit awards and four MTV Video Music Awards. He is one of the best-selling musicians of all time with estimated record sales between 100 million and 125 million worldwide.
George had an army of fans who just loved to watch him do his thing. Whether as the chiselled young man or the middle-aged star. Slim or with increased weight, people loved him and were fascinated by him, he sold out concert venues and fans would squeeze into confined spaces just to see and hear their pop hero. Yet George Michael was a stage name act and a mask that concealed a man who was never happy living outside this guise. A pop star who gave millions to charity as one of his selfless acts in life. A gentle soul whose life options robbed us of far too soon.
