George Michael: The biography

by Rob Jovanovic

  A week after meeting Kenny Goss, George had phoned his mother back in England to tell her about his new friend. Since coming out to his family he had no longer had any problem discussing personal matters with her. During the conversation Lesley told her son that she’d found a little growth on her shoulder, but that she was being treated and that everything was fine. The little spot, however, turned out to be skin cancer. Treatment continued and she went into remission for three or four months, and for Christmas 1996 she was allowed home to be with the family. But the melanoma was extremely virulent; it came back with a vengeance and she died soon after its return. Apparently she’d known all along that she had only a very small chance of survival, but – just as her son tended to do when he had a serious problem – she had kept it to herself.

  George, with his father and sisters, was at her bedside at Charing Cross Hospital until the end. The suddenness with which it came took everyone by surprise, but George was devastated. He had been completely unprepared for this, and found himself spiralling into darkness as life went by in a blur. In February, when he won the Brit Award as Best British Male for the third time, he was in no state to appear at the show. Instead Elton John read out a note apologising for his absence: ‘I would have loved to have been there and say thank you to everybody who has made music part of my life for 15 years.’

  Soon after Lesley’s death George Michael appeared on Chris Tarrant’s Capital Radio show to make a donation of £166,000 to the station’s Help a London Child weekend, which had been running since 1980. Michael had already written and recorded ‘Waltz Away Dreaming’ for the charity, listeners pledging money in order to hear it over the airwaves. This raised £35,000, Michael then added £70,000, topping it up with a further £96,000 to push it over the £200,000 mark. ‘I hope everyone who listens to the song appreciates what it means to me,’ said Michael. ‘I didn’t think I’d have a good day like this for a long time. I had a fantastic time just listening to the radio.’

  ‘After my mother died, luckily I had just met Kenny,’ he explained elsewhere. ‘So he was my lifeline. I think if Kenny hadn’t been there, I don’t know if I would’ve got through that, I really don’t. Because from the day that I found out about my partner [Anselmo] to the day that I could say I was actually on the mend from my mother it was just constant fear, either fear of death or fear of the next bereavement. I took it very, very badly, very badly indeed. I feel like I lost a big chunk of my life to that kind of bereavement. I’m so appreciative of what I have now, so appreciative of the simplest things, it really makes a difference.’

  Years later Michael would discuss his belief that the departed Anselmo Feleppa had looked down from heaven and sent Kenny Goss to him just as he needed him most, when his mother’s cancer was diagnosed. Kenny was vital in helping Michael to pull through the most difficult period of his life. The singer felt that the greater powers of life were saying he couldn’t have everything. Money and success on one side was being balanced by the loss of those closest to him on the other.

  ‘I was so convinced I was going to lose her, that in my own way I was grieving well before she died,’ he said. Michael granted an interview to his Bare biographer Tony Parsons for what he thought would be a record company biography, but it ended up being serialised over three days in the Mirror. ‘I’d talked to him as a friend,’ said Michael. ‘Even though I was telling the truth, it was degrading in “Mirrorspeak”. I didn’t want to talk about important things in the Mirror. I lost dignity.

  ‘When my mum died, it was the one time that going through my Internet sites made me feel good, people genuinely wishing you well is a blessing. From the minute I sorted myself out, everything seemed to fall apart. It’s lucky it was that way round. If these things had happened when I was a young man, it would have been too much. When you’ve gone through the shit I have, you understand the value of pop music, of how fantastic it is to whack on a great record and go where it takes you. I fucking needed that plenty in the last couple of years. I really understand what it is to be able to do that for people. I don’t want to write more songs about misery, writing about it doesn’t seem to stop me from getting more of it.’

  While Michael was trying to come to terms with his mother’s loss the promotional bandwagon rolled on. ‘Older’ was released as a single in January 1997 and ‘Star People ’97’ followed in April. In a setting of understated percussion and a lilting trumpet, Michael used ‘Older’ to reflect on his life and the passing years. The moody vibe was transferred to the video, which showed Michael walking around a hillside village in what looked like New Mexico. The sepia-tinged shots were filled with religious imagery, including glimpses of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

  ‘Star People ’97’ took a swing at the cult of celebrity. ‘I don’t think I would ever have been part of that,’ he claimed. ‘I always wanted to be famous for being good at something. I wanted to be so good at something that I would be untouchable. Most stars started out as children that felt out of control or oppressed and wanted to show the world and their parents that they were worth something. There are so many people out there now that are prepared to sell their lives to make themselves famous, and that makes them completely vulnerable. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. I just don’t understand it.’

  On 31 August the world was stunned by the news that the Princess of Wales, along with her companion Dodi Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul, had been killed in a car accident. Like everyone else, Michael was stunned. ‘I hadn’t seen her for a couple of years by the time she died,’ he recalled. ‘We nearly got together on that St Tropez trip [where she’d been photographed with Al-Fayed]. I was supposed to go onto the boat, and I’m quite glad I didn’t because it would have been so fresh when she died. I mean, I was so upset by it anyway, but had I seen her just before I think it would have been even more upsetting.’ Within weeks of her death the final single from Older was issued, the emotional ‘You Have Been Loved’. It was almost ironic that this song, with its graphic description of Michael’s visit to Anselmo Feleppa’s grave, should have been released when it was. Still grieving for his own mother, looking back at the death of his lover and dealing with the loss of the Princess, it’s no wonder that Michael later said he felt that he was surrounded by death. ‘You Have Been Loved’ was donated to a charity album released as a tribute to Princess Diana.

  George Michael spent the rest of 1997 in private, reeling from the deaths that seemed to knock him back one after the other. He continued to keep a low profile during early 1998. The cycle of singles from Older had run its course, there was still no sign of a tour and he was staying away from the press as much as possible. He was spending most of his time in Los Angeles. Who could have predicted what would happen next?

  NINE

  PHOENIX

  1998–2002

  phoe•nix

  (sometimes initial capital letter) a mythical bird of great beauty fabled to live 500 or 600 years in the Arabian wilderness, to burn itself on a funeral pyre, and to rise from its ashes in the freshness of youth and live through another cycle of years: often an emblem of immortality or of reborn idealism or hope.

  a person or thing of peerless beauty or excellence; paragon.

  a person or thing that has become renewed or restored after suffering calamity or apparent annihilation.

  ‘In the UK, since my left hand outed me to an audience of millions on that fateful day in 1998, my personal life, or rather my imagined personal life, has rarely been out of the tabloid press.’

  George Michael

  ‘I quite like the fact that I’m the last person that anyone expected to do it. Being humiliated so badly in the press was a good starting point for me being honest. It gave me the guts to do it. But now I see it as a mission. To say, “Look, I know you like me, and I know you like my music. But at the end of the day I’m gay. And I’m a slut.” Some of us are and we should be fine with that.’

  George Michael

  It’s not that strange
to see a celebrity in the Will Rogers Memorial Park. Rogers, cowboy, philosopher, film star and mayor of Beverly Hills, had this park named after him in 1952. Previously it had been part of the front lawn of the Beverly Hills Hotel, which is now located across the street. That’s why celebrities visit it – the gentle landscaping, immaculate gardens and fish ponds make it a perfect place to meet a friend or have a picnic. John Wayne is said once to have landed in the park in a helicopter, while Rod Stewart proposed to Rachel Hunter there in 1990. But on 7 April 1998 it became forever linked to George Michael.

  Just over a year after his mother’s death, Michael was spending a lot of time with Kenny Goss at his Los Angeles home. He’d also been playing host to Spice Girl Geri Halliwell. Some papers had started rumours of a romance, especially after the two were photographed walking hand in hand. ‘It’s not a “celebrity friendship”,’ Halliwell told Q magazine. ‘I can’t stand that Hello! darling, lovey lovey. We’re both famous and part of the music industry but we’ve both lost a parent, both from Watford, both have a Mediterranean parent, both been ugly kids and blossomed. Nobody wants to talk about death. Then I heard George talking about losing his mother, I was a fan, I thought I was going to marry him, and I was so drawn to him. I gave him my telephone number, gave him big eyes and tried to flirt with him, thinking I had a chance. How wrong was I? I got second best and we became friends.’

  During 1998 Halliwell was staying out of the UK for tax reasons. Michael extended her an invitation to stay with him and Kenny for a while, and she accepted. ‘We were telephone buddies and when I left the group, he invited me to stay for three days. I stayed for three months. I don’t know what I’d have done without that guy, he was an absolute angel. To begin with, he didn’t know me that well, but I had nobody, I was so lonely. I needed someone to give me a cuddle and say it’s all right. George and Kenny were everything to me, the moral support I needed to get through that time. I share my doubts and fears with him. He said, “There’s no rush, nobody’s going to forget you, if what you’re doing is good it will stand the test of time.” I play him things, but it’s like taking it home to your parents, desperately wanting their approval. I crap myself every time. He’s brutally honest: sometimes I walk out with my head in my hands and sometimes I’m going “Yes!” I’ve never been friends with anybody famous before.’

  But gossip-column items about George Michael and Geri Halliwell were soon forgotten after what happened next. On the day in question George had been working at his home on the bonus tracks for the forthcoming ‘best of’ compilation. That afternoon he drove down to the park. He had been there before. A member of the British paparazzi had photographed him hanging around there the previous year but the photos had never been published.

  There were a few people in the park going about their business. One of them, undercover police officer Rodriguez, was on ‘potty patrol’ – looking out for homosexual men picking each other up in public conveniences. His department was supposedly ‘acting on information’ that the park was a hotbed of gay activity, even though only two arrests had been made during the previous year.

  After a while Michael thought that there were only two people around, himself and a cute-looking guy he’d spotted. Reports vary about what happened next, but it seems that Michael then went into the men’s room and was followed by the undercover cop. Michael was at the sink washing his hands when the officer walked in. ‘They don’t send Columbo, they send someone really nice looking,’ Michael said later. The policeman stood watching the singer from a cubicle, pleasuring himself. Michael started to do the same, at which point the policeman walked out. When Michael followed a few moments later he was arrested. If the cop hadn’t followed him no crime would have been committed and there would have been no arrest. From that perspective it could be called entrapment.

  ‘I was stupid,’ Michael told MTV. ‘It was a stupid thing to do, but I’ve never been able to turn down a free meal. The fact is there was absolutely no one else in the vicinity, whatever the police arrest report says. It was just me, well actually it was two undercover cops, only I couldn’t see one of them. Two undercover cops and a randy pop star. So there was no one there. If someone’s waving their genitalia at you, you don’t automatically assume they’re an officer of the law.’

  George Michael spent the next three hours at the spotlessly clean Beverly Hills police station. When he was put in a holding cell he couldn’t believe the irony of his situation; lying on the concrete bed was a copy of the gossip magazine National Enquirer. ‘I’ll be on the cover of that next week,’ he thought to himself. Arrested under his real name, Michael was charged with lewd behaviour. He was released on $500 bail and ordered to appear the following month.

  The use of Michael’s real name meant that the news wires didn’t pounce all over the arrest, while the charge of lewd behaviour was vague about what he was supposed to have done. Due to the eight-hour time difference between the UK and Los Angeles, the official police statement about the incident didn’t make the UK news until the following evening, when a spokesman for the Beverly Hills Police Department said, ‘Members of our crime suppression unit were monitoring the park yesterday, they did go into the rest room and did observe Mr Michaels [sic] engaged in a lewd act. He was by himself. The officers observed the act and arrested Mr Michaels [sic].’

  On his release George called Kenny to tell him what had happened. Andros Georgiou was in town and he went to Michael’s house that night for dinner. Michael explained to them that this was something he’d been doing for a while, something that at the time they hadn’t needed to know about. He wasn’t looking forward to speaking to his father about it, though – but when he phoned, Jack Panos was behind him all the way, saying George should tell them all to ‘sod off’. The singer gathered a great deal of strength from his friends and family that day.

  When the news broke back home the tabloid response was predictable. The Mirror claimed that Michael had lured the officer into the toilets, while the Sun screamed ‘Zip Me Up Before You Go Go’. The next day the park was full of the press, trying to find out exactly what had happened. The men’s room quickly became the world’s most photographed loo. Michael’s house was surrounded, while helicopters buzzed overhead. Even his neighbours were interviewed.

  In hindsight the incident was Michael’s subconscious way of outing himself. He would have gone through life without ever sitting down in a face-to-face interview with anyone and saying ‘I’m gay’. Still very depressed about his mother, he knew he shouldn’t have gone into that toilet – he said he’d had a bad feeling about it – but he had done so anyway. And he’d chosen to do it in Beverly Hills, which gave the incident an inherently ‘showbiz’ aspect. ‘If it hadn’t happened that day, it was going to happen very soon,’ said Michael. ‘But going through two bereavements gives unrivalled perspective. The first day I was freaked out because I’d literally just got out of depression. I thought, somebody is trying to finish me off here, I cannot be this unlucky, when do I get a fucking break? I couldn’t believe it had happened.’

  With the press pack sniffing around outside, Michael decided to defy the unwritten law that says celebrities in this situation should hide behind their curtains. Instead he went out for a meal at nearby Spargo’s. At 10 pm a black stretch limo pulled up and Michael was bundled into the back. The cameramen set off on a hectic chase behind him down the winding roads, jumping red lights, determined to be there for that all-important photograph when Michael stepped out of the car.

  The singer ate his meal, said hello to Lionel Richie and Tony Curtis, who were eating there that night and was home by midnight. It was the first indication that Michael wouldn’t be running from this incident.

  The next day he took this approach a step further. In an attempt to make a pre-emptive strike against the British Sunday papers, he put himself forward for an interview with CNN. He knew that his Friday recording in Los Angeles would air in the UK on Saturday night, while CNN also offered a wor
ldwide platform for him to give his side of the story.

  The singer was clearly stressed as filming began. After a few minutes he asked to take a break, after which he came back in and recording started over again. What he had to say was intensely personal and brutally honest. ‘This is as good a time as any,’ he said to interviewer Jim Moret. ‘I want to say that I have no problem with people knowing that I’m in a relationship with a man right now. I have not been in a relationship with a woman for almost ten years.

  ‘I don’t feel any shame. I feel stupid and I feel reckless and weak for having allowed my sexuality to be exposed this way. But I don’t feel any shame whatsoever.’ He’d never been reticent, he explained, in expressing his sexuality through his songs. ‘I write about my life. I do want people to know that the songs that I wrote when I was with women were really about women. And the songs that I’ve written since have been fairly obviously about men.’

  The interview itself made the TV news in the UK. The worst-kept secret in show business was now well and truly out in the open, but by approaching the situation head on he’d handled it perfectly. By early the next week the front pages were given over to Anthea Turner’s love life.

  George Michael didn’t actually appear in court. His legal team entered a plea of no contest and took the punishment of an $810 fine and 80 hours’ community service as well as a ban from Will Rogers Park. At Michael’s birthday party that summer the invitations said ‘Go to the bathroom before you come as all conveniences will be locked to protect the host.’