FAITH, HOPE, & HONESTY
February 29, 2004
By Katherine Tulich
February 29, 2004
By Katherine Tulich
The face is a little more lined, the hair is darker and speckled with grey. He is smaller than you would expect - slight even - although I am told he is so worried about his weight for an upcoming video
shoot he has consumed little more than a frappuccino all day. George Michael is holding court in a hotel room talking and talking about life, self-acceptance and his new album, Patience, his first in
eight years. In fact it's hard to shut him up. After years of silence, he is going to talk for as long as he damn well likes.
In a career spanning more than 20 years in the charts and the headlines, Michael has rarely given interviews. He has never courted media attention and has hated doing videos or being
photographed. It often seemed our only insights into his life were when he hit the news for all the wrong reasons. In the early 1990s it was the public and very bitter battle to extricate himself from
an iron-clad contract with Sony Music. In 1998 it was his arrest for lewd behaviour in an LA public toilet. More recently it was the fallout from his blatant anti-Blair/Bush stand on the Iraq war with the
release of his scathing song and
video Shoot the Dog.
But today Michael is in a buoyant mood. A smile, a joke and a laugh come easily to his lips. His partner of eight years, Texan-born Kenny Goss, is in the next room, while his constant companions,
two boisterous labradors, bound in to greet us. The eldest, Meg, curls contentedly on the sofa next to him, while Abbey does her best to wolf up the butter on a nearby table. At 40, there's an
easy optimism about Michael, which by all accounts is a fairly recent transformation. He's feeling good about his career comeback, heralded by the long-awaited album and its first single Amazing,
which brings to mind his past hits Fast Love and Too Funky.
"It's such a relief. I really thought I would never be able to do this again," he says explaining that he has only recently emerged from a crippling bout of writer's block. "I have gone through so much
to get to this album. I have worked through so much depression, fear and anxiety."
So where has he been? "My life has been like a really bad soap opera for the past 10 years," he laughs. It doesn't take much prompting to get Michael to talk candidly about his life. He is
confessional in the way of someone who has had years of therapy (which he admits he has). "Everything was going my way. And 1 was happily marching into the history books," he says of his
earlier career successes, "but then it all just fell apart."
He was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in the London suburb of Finchley to an immigrant (Greek Cypriot) father who ran a local restaurant and an English mother. He admits there
wasn't much evidence of his talent as a youngster attending Bushey Meads Comprehensive School. "It's not like I had a remarkable voice as a child. I got thrown out of choir, but that didn't stop
me from telling everyone I was going to be a famous pop star. My dad used to say to me all the time, 'How come if you're going to be successful, no one else has spotted it'."
It was at Bushey Meads that Michael met Andrew Ridgeley and the two friends began writing and recording demos, forming their first band, Executive, in 1979. Michael proved to be a prolific and
canny songwriter, writing Careless Whisper when he was just 17 (it would become No. 1 around the world in the mid-'80s) and signing a long-term publishing deal the following year. By 1984,
Wham mania had hit with a caffeine jolt of infectious pop called Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. Michael's cherubic face, mop of blond-streaked hair and "Choose Life" T-shirts became defining
images of the early '80s. And as it became obvious that he was the only band member with any real musical talent, his transition from teeny-bopper idol to solo pop superstardom was seamless.
Wham played its final gig before 72,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in 1986 and the following year, Michael's first solo album. Faith, spawned four^No. 1 hits including I Want Your Sex and the
title track. But with the release of his second album, Listen
Without Prejudice Vol I, in 1990, he began to retreat from the spotlight, shunning the press and refusing to make videos.
Michael says that, in retrospect, that was the catalyst for his downward spiral, both personally and professionally. "I decided I needed to protect myself and sort things out privately, so I
moved out of promotion and I really started to get my shit together. I worked out that I was definitely gay and I knew if I was going to be gay and happy then I needed to find a partner and I was
not going to do that travelling the world as George Michael. But it felt like I got hugely punished for taking those steps to protect myself."
He blames former Sony chief (and Mariah Carey's ex) Tommy Mottola for his career demise. "He had no interest in my career which was really a shock to me because everything had been on the
up and up,and it was then I felt my luck had just deserted me." His legal battle with Sony began in 1992 as he tried to extricate himself from the $12 million contract he signed in 1988. Two
years later a London court rejected his claim. The singer appealed, but as the court battle raged he was unable to release new material. He never won his case but Virgin Records bought out his
contract and he released his next album, older, in 1996. (The bad blood between Michael and Sony is now in the past. He has signed with the label for his new album, which he says has much to
do with he fact that Mattola is no longer with the company.)
shoot he has consumed little more than a frappuccino all day. George Michael is holding court in a hotel room talking and talking about life, self-acceptance and his new album, Patience, his first in
eight years. In fact it's hard to shut him up. After years of silence, he is going to talk for as long as he damn well likes.
In a career spanning more than 20 years in the charts and the headlines, Michael has rarely given interviews. He has never courted media attention and has hated doing videos or being
photographed. It often seemed our only insights into his life were when he hit the news for all the wrong reasons. In the early 1990s it was the public and very bitter battle to extricate himself from
an iron-clad contract with Sony Music. In 1998 it was his arrest for lewd behaviour in an LA public toilet. More recently it was the fallout from his blatant anti-Blair/Bush stand on the Iraq war with the
release of his scathing song and
video Shoot the Dog.
But today Michael is in a buoyant mood. A smile, a joke and a laugh come easily to his lips. His partner of eight years, Texan-born Kenny Goss, is in the next room, while his constant companions,
two boisterous labradors, bound in to greet us. The eldest, Meg, curls contentedly on the sofa next to him, while Abbey does her best to wolf up the butter on a nearby table. At 40, there's an
easy optimism about Michael, which by all accounts is a fairly recent transformation. He's feeling good about his career comeback, heralded by the long-awaited album and its first single Amazing,
which brings to mind his past hits Fast Love and Too Funky.
"It's such a relief. I really thought I would never be able to do this again," he says explaining that he has only recently emerged from a crippling bout of writer's block. "I have gone through so much
to get to this album. I have worked through so much depression, fear and anxiety."
So where has he been? "My life has been like a really bad soap opera for the past 10 years," he laughs. It doesn't take much prompting to get Michael to talk candidly about his life. He is
confessional in the way of someone who has had years of therapy (which he admits he has). "Everything was going my way. And 1 was happily marching into the history books," he says of his
earlier career successes, "but then it all just fell apart."
He was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in the London suburb of Finchley to an immigrant (Greek Cypriot) father who ran a local restaurant and an English mother. He admits there
wasn't much evidence of his talent as a youngster attending Bushey Meads Comprehensive School. "It's not like I had a remarkable voice as a child. I got thrown out of choir, but that didn't stop
me from telling everyone I was going to be a famous pop star. My dad used to say to me all the time, 'How come if you're going to be successful, no one else has spotted it'."
It was at Bushey Meads that Michael met Andrew Ridgeley and the two friends began writing and recording demos, forming their first band, Executive, in 1979. Michael proved to be a prolific and
canny songwriter, writing Careless Whisper when he was just 17 (it would become No. 1 around the world in the mid-'80s) and signing a long-term publishing deal the following year. By 1984,
Wham mania had hit with a caffeine jolt of infectious pop called Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. Michael's cherubic face, mop of blond-streaked hair and "Choose Life" T-shirts became defining
images of the early '80s. And as it became obvious that he was the only band member with any real musical talent, his transition from teeny-bopper idol to solo pop superstardom was seamless.
Wham played its final gig before 72,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in 1986 and the following year, Michael's first solo album. Faith, spawned four^No. 1 hits including I Want Your Sex and the
title track. But with the release of his second album, Listen
Without Prejudice Vol I, in 1990, he began to retreat from the spotlight, shunning the press and refusing to make videos.
Michael says that, in retrospect, that was the catalyst for his downward spiral, both personally and professionally. "I decided I needed to protect myself and sort things out privately, so I
moved out of promotion and I really started to get my shit together. I worked out that I was definitely gay and I knew if I was going to be gay and happy then I needed to find a partner and I was
not going to do that travelling the world as George Michael. But it felt like I got hugely punished for taking those steps to protect myself."
He blames former Sony chief (and Mariah Carey's ex) Tommy Mottola for his career demise. "He had no interest in my career which was really a shock to me because everything had been on the
up and up,and it was then I felt my luck had just deserted me." His legal battle with Sony began in 1992 as he tried to extricate himself from the $12 million contract he signed in 1988. Two
years later a London court rejected his claim. The singer appealed, but as the court battle raged he was unable to release new material. He never won his case but Virgin Records bought out his
contract and he released his next album, older, in 1996. (The bad blood between Michael and Sony is now in the past. He has signed with the label for his new album, which he says has much to
do with he fact that Mattola is no longer with the company.)
At the same time, Michael was suffering at a personal level. He had finally found love with a good looking
Brazilian dress designer named Anselmo Felipa, whom he met at the Rock in Rio music festival in 1991.
But soon after he discovered his lover was dying of AIDS. Following Feleppa's death, at 33, in 1993,
Michael tried to bury his grief by smoking up to 25 cannabis joints a day and immersing himself in his
music (1996's Older was written as a tribute to Felipa). He was just recovering from that loss when
another blow hit. "It was 1997 and I had just met my current partner who, thank God, I'm still with and I rang
to tell my mother that I had finally found some happiness and she told me she had cancer. So I went
spinning straight into another cycle of grief and bereavement."
Michael claims it was this spin cycle that ultimately precipitated the incident that will be forever imprinted
as a grubby footnote on his life story his arrest for "lewd behaviour" in a public toilet in a Beverly Hills park
in 1998.
He pleaded no contest, was fined $1300 and sentenced to 80 hours' community service. Michael asked
to distribute meals to AIDS sufferers through charity Project Angel Food, but the judge refused to let him.
He was placed on 2 years' probation and ordered to have sexual counseling.
The fallout from this public humiliation forced Michael to "come out" about his sexuality. "It was really
something that had made me feel uncomfortable for a long time, the dishonesty of it, but I saw it as a fight
for privacy between me and the press," he explains. "It must have looked like I was acting the way most
closeted gay stars behave, but I was trying to give all these hints. Therefore I dedicated Older to Anselmo,
I even grew myself one of those funny little growth moustaches... any way I could imply I wasn't ashamed,
but I just didn't want to give those bastards
(the press) what they wanted by declaring it."
Going into damage control after his arrest, Michael opted to give an immediate interview to CNN's Jim Moret,
in which he said he felt "stupid and reckless and weak for allowing my sexuality to be exposed in this way".
"I went for the one (interview) that I thought would look the bravest. I was advised to do Barbara Walters
because they could put a filter on the camera lenses and I could cry. Maria Shriver (Arnold Schwarzenegger's
wife) was desperate to get the first interview, but her network didn't want to play it over the Easter weekend
as they felt it was an inappropriate topic, so she rang me and asked if I would like to issue an apology
and ask Americans to pray for me over the weekend. I couldn't believe that she actually thought that I
would see some merit in that. I told here that I thought Americans have more to pray for than me being a fag," he
laughs heartily.
Brazilian dress designer named Anselmo Felipa, whom he met at the Rock in Rio music festival in 1991.
But soon after he discovered his lover was dying of AIDS. Following Feleppa's death, at 33, in 1993,
Michael tried to bury his grief by smoking up to 25 cannabis joints a day and immersing himself in his
music (1996's Older was written as a tribute to Felipa). He was just recovering from that loss when
another blow hit. "It was 1997 and I had just met my current partner who, thank God, I'm still with and I rang
to tell my mother that I had finally found some happiness and she told me she had cancer. So I went
spinning straight into another cycle of grief and bereavement."
Michael claims it was this spin cycle that ultimately precipitated the incident that will be forever imprinted
as a grubby footnote on his life story his arrest for "lewd behaviour" in a public toilet in a Beverly Hills park
in 1998.
He pleaded no contest, was fined $1300 and sentenced to 80 hours' community service. Michael asked
to distribute meals to AIDS sufferers through charity Project Angel Food, but the judge refused to let him.
He was placed on 2 years' probation and ordered to have sexual counseling.
The fallout from this public humiliation forced Michael to "come out" about his sexuality. "It was really
something that had made me feel uncomfortable for a long time, the dishonesty of it, but I saw it as a fight
for privacy between me and the press," he explains. "It must have looked like I was acting the way most
closeted gay stars behave, but I was trying to give all these hints. Therefore I dedicated Older to Anselmo,
I even grew myself one of those funny little growth moustaches... any way I could imply I wasn't ashamed,
but I just didn't want to give those bastards
(the press) what they wanted by declaring it."
Going into damage control after his arrest, Michael opted to give an immediate interview to CNN's Jim Moret,
in which he said he felt "stupid and reckless and weak for allowing my sexuality to be exposed in this way".
"I went for the one (interview) that I thought would look the bravest. I was advised to do Barbara Walters
because they could put a filter on the camera lenses and I could cry. Maria Shriver (Arnold Schwarzenegger's
wife) was desperate to get the first interview, but her network didn't want to play it over the Easter weekend
as they felt it was an inappropriate topic, so she rang me and asked if I would like to issue an apology
and ask Americans to pray for me over the weekend. I couldn't believe that she actually thought that I
would see some merit in that. I told here that I thought Americans have more to pray for than me being a fag," he
laughs heartily.
In retrospect Michael sees his arrest as a call to attention. "The idea that people thought I was ashamed of being gay provided the motivation for me to create some trouble for myself.
It took me years to work out why I had done that to myself. But it was also, in a strange way, a distraction from the ongoing depression I was feeling over the loss of my partner
and my mother."
On his new album, Michael has written a song for his mother called My Mother Had a Brother. "When I was 17 my mum sat me down and told me about her brother who killed himself on the
day I was born. He had waited through her pregnancy but could not wait any longer. She told me she thought he was probably gay and couldn't cope," he says.
"I wanted to write something for my mother but I didn't have the guts to write something directly about her or how much I miss her, that still would be too painful for me to write. So I feel this
song is a nice message — for my uncle to know that life is so much better now and, if in some way I am his reincarnation, to tell him how happy I am and that I share my life openly with a man."
I wonder if Michael had any qualms about admitting his sexuality to his family. "My family was totally accepting by the time I actually told them, which was when my first partner died. They kind of
knew but my mother was more devastated that she couldn't be there to help me through his illness. The early '90s were a frightening time. People were dying and it was terrifying for me. I was
just trying to protect her from the fear of AIDS that I felt."
Michael has always shunned the rock-star life. He is frugal with his money and says he lives simply. "I'm not good at enjoying money. When they say rich and famous I never really thought
about the rich part. I was so obsessed with getting attention, it didn't occur to me that I would be able to buy nice things and have whatever I wanted. I didn't come from a wealthy family and
I wasn't really given much as a kid. My father was very tight with his money and my mother was very Victorian in her attitudes and suspicious of money and material needs.
"I was so clueless when I was in Wham. I could have afforded a nice place but I lived in a really shitty flat where the curtains were falling off and the plumbing didn't work because I really
had no idea how to jump up a notch. I was so uneasy with a lot of money and any show of wealth. When Andrew (he and Ridgeley are still good friends) came to my house for the first time
about two-and-a-half years ago, the first thing he said to me was, "Thank god, it's about time you lived in a bit of style."
Michael says being content in love has finally helped him enjoy his considerable wealth. "I live nicely and I enjoy the money in ways that would not have occurred to me before, because
my partner does. I had to be really taught not to be afraid of it," he says. One of his recent extravagances was the purchase of the piano on which John Lennon composed Imagine.
It cost him $3.5 million. "If I didn't buy it some Japanese investment portfolio would have grabbed it and that would have been a tragedy," he says. While Michael used the piano to compose
the title track of his new album, most of the time it is on loan to museums. "I don't want it locked away somewhere."
Michael has bought numerous houses over the years including properties in Los Angeles and the south of France ("hotel life does not suit me at all," he says) but he is now in the process of
selling them. "I'm rarely in them these days," he explains. "I don't travel any more so they were just huge extravagances. I'm a real homebody. Last year I left England once lo visit Sony in New
York to decide whether I would sign with them again but that's it." He will keep his London home and a country estate outside London. "I live a really quiet life. I have my partner and I have my
two lovely dogs - I've got my TV, got my weed, I'm happy."
While it's unlikely Michael will ever tour extensively again, he has been asked to perform at the opening of the Olympics in Athens which he is likely to do. "My father would be thrilled," he
smiles. "Most of the people on Cyprus already claim to be related to me." He still can't quite believe that he's finally at peace with himself "If someone had told me five years ago that my life would
be this good now, I would have been so relieved, I'm not afraid of anything now.
It took me years to work out why I had done that to myself. But it was also, in a strange way, a distraction from the ongoing depression I was feeling over the loss of my partner
and my mother."
On his new album, Michael has written a song for his mother called My Mother Had a Brother. "When I was 17 my mum sat me down and told me about her brother who killed himself on the
day I was born. He had waited through her pregnancy but could not wait any longer. She told me she thought he was probably gay and couldn't cope," he says.
"I wanted to write something for my mother but I didn't have the guts to write something directly about her or how much I miss her, that still would be too painful for me to write. So I feel this
song is a nice message — for my uncle to know that life is so much better now and, if in some way I am his reincarnation, to tell him how happy I am and that I share my life openly with a man."
I wonder if Michael had any qualms about admitting his sexuality to his family. "My family was totally accepting by the time I actually told them, which was when my first partner died. They kind of
knew but my mother was more devastated that she couldn't be there to help me through his illness. The early '90s were a frightening time. People were dying and it was terrifying for me. I was
just trying to protect her from the fear of AIDS that I felt."
Michael has always shunned the rock-star life. He is frugal with his money and says he lives simply. "I'm not good at enjoying money. When they say rich and famous I never really thought
about the rich part. I was so obsessed with getting attention, it didn't occur to me that I would be able to buy nice things and have whatever I wanted. I didn't come from a wealthy family and
I wasn't really given much as a kid. My father was very tight with his money and my mother was very Victorian in her attitudes and suspicious of money and material needs.
"I was so clueless when I was in Wham. I could have afforded a nice place but I lived in a really shitty flat where the curtains were falling off and the plumbing didn't work because I really
had no idea how to jump up a notch. I was so uneasy with a lot of money and any show of wealth. When Andrew (he and Ridgeley are still good friends) came to my house for the first time
about two-and-a-half years ago, the first thing he said to me was, "Thank god, it's about time you lived in a bit of style."
Michael says being content in love has finally helped him enjoy his considerable wealth. "I live nicely and I enjoy the money in ways that would not have occurred to me before, because
my partner does. I had to be really taught not to be afraid of it," he says. One of his recent extravagances was the purchase of the piano on which John Lennon composed Imagine.
It cost him $3.5 million. "If I didn't buy it some Japanese investment portfolio would have grabbed it and that would have been a tragedy," he says. While Michael used the piano to compose
the title track of his new album, most of the time it is on loan to museums. "I don't want it locked away somewhere."
Michael has bought numerous houses over the years including properties in Los Angeles and the south of France ("hotel life does not suit me at all," he says) but he is now in the process of
selling them. "I'm rarely in them these days," he explains. "I don't travel any more so they were just huge extravagances. I'm a real homebody. Last year I left England once lo visit Sony in New
York to decide whether I would sign with them again but that's it." He will keep his London home and a country estate outside London. "I live a really quiet life. I have my partner and I have my
two lovely dogs - I've got my TV, got my weed, I'm happy."
While it's unlikely Michael will ever tour extensively again, he has been asked to perform at the opening of the Olympics in Athens which he is likely to do. "My father would be thrilled," he
smiles. "Most of the people on Cyprus already claim to be related to me." He still can't quite believe that he's finally at peace with himself "If someone had told me five years ago that my life would
be this good now, I would have been so relieved, I'm not afraid of anything now.