In 1987, George Michael, and I don't think this
is an exaggeration, arguably the most visible
human being on the planet. He was an omnipresent
entity. You had the aviator sunglasses, you had
the distressed denim, the leather jacket, the
stubble. He wasn't just a pop star. He was a
global brand that generated millions and millions
of dollars and sold 25 million copies of a single
album. It was a level of fame that's... It's
hard to even quantify today. It wasn't just that
he was popular. He was the monoculture. Right.
But then, just three years later, this very same
man, who had worked his entire life to get every
single eye in the world looking at him, decided
he refused to show his face. Not just his face.
He wouldn't show up for anything. He refused
to be in his own music videos. He refused to
tour. He effectively tried to murder the career
he had just spent a decade building. And that
right there. That is the tension I want to explore
today. We aren't just doing a biography of, you
know, the last Christmas guy. We are looking
at the specific legal, psychological, and artistic
mechanisms of one of pop culture's most, I guess,
aggressive acts of self -sabotage. I think self
-sabotage is the phrase people used at the time,
but looking back now with a bit of distance,
it looks a lot more like self -preservation.
That's the paradox we're dealing with. It was
Georgios Kyriakos Panayotou versus George Michael,
the man versus the mask he created. And it's
a really messy story. I mean, we have the highest
highs of 80s pop, but we also have sting operations
in public restrooms. We do. We have a landmark
lawsuit against Sony that literally changed the
music industry. Absolutely. And we have this
secret life of philanthropy that was so well
hidden, it almost feels like he was running some
kind of, I don't know, a covert operation. Which
in a way he was. The mission of this deep dive
is to really understand that architecture. How
do you build a superstar persona piece by piece?
And then how do you meticulously dismantle it
while the entire world is watching? Let's start
with the before. Because, you know, the leather
jacket didn't just come out of the womb. He was
Georgios. Just Georgios. Yeah. Born in East Finchley,
North London. His dad, Jack Maneotou, was a Greek
Cypriot restaurateur. His mom, Leslie, was an
English dancer. Is this a standard immigrant
hustle story? Oh, very much so. His father was
the absolute archetype of the hardworking immigrant
patriarch. Right. Driven, stoic, always, always
working. This absence his father just never being
there it really shaped him He became incredibly
close to his mother because his father was simply
a ghost in the house But there's a psychological
layer there too isn't there I read his father
was apparently quite critical of his ambitions
extremely critical He didn't think George could
sing he'd tell him that he didn't think he had
it Whatever it is. Which is the classic fuel
for a future pop star, isn't it? That whole I'll
show you mentality. It really is. But I read
about this one specific incident in his childhood
that honestly it sounds like a comic book origin
story. The head injury theory. It does sound
completely made up, but George stuck to this
story his entire life. It never changed. Okay,
so what was it? When he was about eight years
old, she had a bad accident. He was playing around
a building site or maybe a garden. The details
are a bit hazy. But he sustained a really significant
head injury. And he claims this. What? It changed
his personality. He claimed that before the accident,
he was obsessed with bugs. Insects. Bugs? Yeah.
He wanted to be an entomologist. He said he didn't
care about music at all. Then he hits his head,
wakes up, and boom. The bugs are gone. The bugs
are gone. And suddenly he is completely obsessed
with music. He literally described it as a rewiring
of his brain. That is just... It's wild. I mean,
scientifically, traumatic brain injuries can
alter personality. Sure. But going from I like
Beatles to I need to write Careless Whisper.
Yeah, that's a stretch. It is a huge stretch.
But whether it was neurological or just a coincidence
of timing, maybe he just hit puberty and discovered
the radio at the same time. It's important because
he believed it. Right. It was his narrative.
It was his truth. He viewed his musical talent
as something that was almost switched on, like
an external force. And I think that adds to this
feeling he had later that the talent was a separate
entity from himself. So the talent is switched
on. He moves to Radlet, goes to Bushy Mead School,
and then the universe intervenes. He meets Andrew
Ridgely. The other half of the equation. And
it's so important to give Andrew his credit here.
History sometimes writes him off as just the
lucky friend, you know. But George was shy. He
was a bit pudgy. He wore these thick glasses.
He was deeply insecure. Andrew wasn't. Andrew
was the cool kid. Andrew had the swagger. He
was confident. George basically just absorbed
Andrew's confidence until he could manufacture
his own. There weren't an overnight success,
though, were there? I think people assume wham.
disappeared fully formed on top of the pops not
at all they were hustling and i mean really really
grinding like they were busking on the london
underground just try to imagine that walking
through the tube in 1980 and seeing george michael
and andrew ridgely trying to sing over the sound
of the screeching trains do we know what they
were playing A lot of Queen, apparently. Of course.
Specifically a song called 39, which is this
deep -cut folk sci -fi song written by Brian
May. It's not even a hit. It shows they actually
had taste, you know? They weren't just playing
the obvious stuff. They were also DJing at places
like the Bel Air restaurant, playing to people
eating steak dinners. That sounds soul -crushing.
They even tried a ska band called The Executive.
They were just throwing everything at the wall
to see what would stick. But when Wham! finally
stuck, It was nuclear. Absolutely nuclear. They
formed the duo in 81. By 1983, their first album,
Fantastic, is number one. But I want to spend
some real time on the China tour in 1985. Because
looking at the research for this, it feels like
this was a truly pivotal moment in global pop
culture, not just for the band. Oh, it's massive.
April 1985 becomes the first major Western pop
act to perform in the People's Republic of China.
You have to set the context here. This is pre
-internet. Pre -everything. The cultural revolution
wasn't that far in the rearview mirror. Western
music was effectively contraband. It was seen
as spiritual pollution. So how on earth did they
pull this off? Why wham? Why not, you know, the
Rolling Stones or Queen or somebody bigger? That
is all down to their manager, Simon Napierbell.
Okay. He was a Machiavellian genius. He spent
18 months negotiating with the Chinese bureaucrats.
And here is the real deep dive detail. Yeah.
He knew that Queen was also trying to get in.
They were the competition. So Napier Bell made
two brochures. Two brochures. Yep. One brochure
was for Wham! And it showed George and Andrew
looking wholesome, smiling, you know, healthy
boys next door. Okay. And then he made another
brochure for Queen where he specifically selected
photos of Freddie Mercury looking his most flamboyant,
his most theatrical, and to the eye. of 1985
Chinese officials his most decadent. He presented
these two options to the officials and basically
said, look, this is the wholesome option and
this is the dangerous option. Your choice. That
is incredibly shady and also absolutely brilliant.
He sabotaged Queen to get the gig. And it worked
like a charm. The Chinese government saw Wham
as this safe. non -threatening introduction to
Western youth culture. Right. They thought it
was just happy, bouncy music. They didn't realize
the subtext of individual freedom and, frankly,
hedonism in songs like Club Tropicana. So they
get there. The concert happens at the Workers'
Gymnasium in Beijing. What was the vibe? Was
it Beatlemania? It was confused. Utterly confused.
You have to picture the audience. It wasn't just
teenagers who'd bought tickets. It was party
officials, police officers, people who had been
given tickets by their work units. They were
all just sitting there in absolute silence because
they didn't know how to behave at a rock concert.
They'd never seen one. There's the famous clapping
incident, right? This perfectly encapsulates
the culture clash. George is on stage. He's giving
it the full 1980s showman energy. He starts clapping
his hands over his head, trying to get the crowd
to clap along to the beat of Club Tropicana.
The universal signal. The universal signal in
the West. Yeah, we know that means join in on
the rhythm. But in China at that time, applause
was a sign of polite respect, like after a political
speech. Oh, no. So the audience sees him clapping,
thinks he wants applause, and they just start
politely clapping. No rhythm. No beat, just this
sort of wash of polite, out -of -time applause
while the bass drum is pounding. That must have
been excruciating for a performer. Yeah. Just
soul -destroying. George was sweating. He later
said it was the hardest gig of his entire life.
He felt like he was failing, like he couldn't
connect. And on top of that, there was this heavy
police presence. Why? What were they worried
about? A riot. They were terrified of a riot.
So if anyone in the crowd stood up or even started
dancing in their seat, the police would physically
push them back down. So it wasn't just a concert.
It was this weird diplomatic stress test. Exactly.
But despite all the awkwardness, the impact was
seismic. The Chicago Tribune ran the headline,
East Meets Wham and Another Great Wall Comes
Down. Wow. It was the moment the door cracked
open. After Wham!, the floodgates slowly began
to open for Western culture in China. It was
a huge deal. And yet, in the middle of this massive
historical moment, George is already checking
out. Mentally, yeah. He's looking at Andrew.
He's looking at the short shorts and the goofy
smiles. And he's thinking. I'm done with this.
He was growing up. Wham was a teen product. And
he knew it. George was developing into a really
serious songwriter. He had already released Careless
Whisper as a solo single in 1984. Which is a
masterpiece of pop songwriting. An absolute masterpiece.
He knew that to be the artist he wanted to become,
he had to kill Wham. But they did it so cleanly.
There were no creative differences, stories in
the press, no public feuding. No, not at all.
They had the final concert at Wembley Stadium
in 1986. They hugged, they cried, they ended
it. It was remarkably mature and amicable. Which
cleared the deck for the creation of the monster,
the faith era. Let's deconstruct 1987. Because
George Michael doesn't just release a solo album.
He releases a new human being. The look changes
like overnight. It was a completely calculated
visual overhaul. He loses the feathery highlighted
hair. He loses all the colorful wake me up before
you go go outfits. And what does he put on? He
puts on the uniform, the leather jacket, the
cowboy boots. The mirrored aviator sunglasses,
the tight Levi's with the rips. It's hyper -masculine.
It's very American. It's Americana seen through
a British lens. But here is the fascinating semiotic
layer that most mainstream audiences completely
missed at the time. Go on. That look. The leather
jacket, the specific cut of the jeans, the mustache,
the stubble. That was lifted directly from the
gay clone culture of the 1970s. Wait, really?
So he's dressing like a gay subculture icon and
selling it to millions of teenage girls in the
suburbs? Precisely. Whether it was a conscious
signaling to those in the know or just him gravitating
toward an aesthetic he found attractive, he took
something that was coded gay in places like the
West Village or the Castro and he repackaged
it as the ultimate heteronormative rebel look.
And the world bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.
Oh, completely. The girls loved him and the guys
wanted to be him. It was a total triumph of branding.
And the numbers just backed it up. Faith sold
over 25 million copies. The single Faith was
the number one song of the entire year in the
U .S., but there was friction immediately. I
want your sex. The song that caused a moral panic.
Yeah, and by today's standards, the lyrics are
pretty tame. Sex is natural, sex is good. It's
not exactly shocking stuff. But in 1987... Just
putting the word sex in the title of a pop song
that's going to be played at three in the afternoon
on the radio. It was scandalous. Casey Kasem
wouldn't even say the name. I know. On American
Top 40, he would just introduce it as the new
single by George Michael. The BBC restricted
daytime airplay. George actually had to film
this little prologue for the music video where
he stands there and explains, this song is not
about promiscuity. it is about monogamy right
he writes explore monogamy on the woman's back
in lipstick in the video he was so desperate
to not be seen as just a smut peddler he wanted
to be taken seriously as an artist and frankly
the controversy only helped of course it made
the album feel dangerous it gave it an edge So
he climbs the mountain. It's 1989. He wins the
Grammy for Album of the Year. He has the money,
the fame, the critical acclaim. He has everything
he ever wanted. And this is where the deep dive
paradox really kicks in. He should be on top
of the world. By his own account, he describes
this period as an absolute nightmare. This is
the idol trap. We see it with so many stars,
but George felt it so acutely. He realized that
the George Michael in the letter jacket was a
character. A total construct. And the public
was in love with the construct, not with him,
Georgios. So he felt like a fraud. He described
wearing those sunglasses as a shield because
he couldn't make eye contact with people anymore.
And on top of all that, he was still in the closet.
Deeply, deeply in the closet. So you have this
man being worshipped around the globe as a heterosexual
sex symbol, which creates this massive, painful
dissonance in his soul. He must have felt like
he was lying to 25 million people. He did. He
said he felt incredibly guilty about it. So.
Most people in that situation would probably
just, you know, buy a private island and take
a long break. Right. George decides to go to
war with his own employer. This leads us to Listen
Without Prejudice Vol. 1 in 1990. And just look
at that title. It's aggressive, isn't it? Listen
Without Prejudice. It's a command. It's a plea.
It's a plea, yeah. He is demanding that you strip
away your preconceptions about the guy in the
leather jacket. And to force you to do that,
he goes to Sony Music and says, I am going on
strike. What does that even mean for a musician?
It means I will deliver the album because I'm
contractually obligated to, but I will not do
any press, I will not tour, and I will not be
on the album cover. From a business perspective,
that is just... It's insanity. You have the biggest
star in the world telling his record company,
I refuse to help you sell the product. Sony went
ballistic. They accused him of arrogance, of
being ungrateful. They basically said, we made
you, you owe us. But George was adamant. He truly
believed the music was good enough to sell itself.
And this refusal to appear in his own videos
is what gave us the Freedom 90 video. Which is
so ironic because it's probably his most famous
and iconic video and he isn't in a single frame
of it. Instead, he hires, who was it? He hired
the big five supermodels of the era. Naomi Campbell,
Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Tijana Petits,
Christy Turlington, the most famous faces on
the planet. And he just has them lip sync the
song. He has them lip sync, but look at what
they are doing in the video. It's so symbolic.
They're destroying his stuff. Yes. The iconic
leather jacket from the Faith tour. They set
it on fire. The jukebox from the Faith video.
It explodes. The guitar. It's just left abandoned
in the corner. It was a public burning of the
effigy. Exactly. He was visually, symbolically
telling the entire world that guy is dead. And
the lyrics are so brutal, too. I was every little
hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy, and I guess
it was enough for me. But today, the way I play
the game is not the same. No way. He is explicitly
resigning from the job of pop star. This tension
with the label Sony, it boils over into a full
-blown lawsuit. And I want to get into the mechanics
of this, because it wasn't just a temper tantrum.
He sued Sony in 1992. What was the legal argument?
He sued on the grounds of restraint of trade.
Which means? Basically, he argued that the standard
recording contract of the time, which bound him
to Sony for nearly 15 years and gave them total
control over how his music was marketed, was
akin to professional slavery. Slavery is a very
loaded word to use for a guy making millions
and millions of dollars. And that was the problem
in court. The judge did not have much sympathy
for that line of argument. I can imagine. But
George's point was about artistic freedom and
equity. He argued that in no other industry could
a company hold an individual's creative output
hostage for that long, especially if the professional
relationship had completely broken down. He wanted
to be a free agent. But he lost the case. He
lost badly. The judge essentially ruled that
the contract was fair because George had received
very good legal advice when he signed it, and
he had happily cashed all the checks. Sony won.
But it did change things in the long run, didn't
it? Ah. Now, while this massive professional
war is raging, his personal life is just. It's
imploding. And this is the context that really
explains the silence of the mid -90s. We have
to talk about Anselmo Filippo. This is the real
heart of the tragedy. In 1991, at the Rock in
Rio Festival in Brazil, George meets Anselmo.
He was a Brazilian dress designer. George said
it was love at first sight. It was the first
time he had truly, deeply allowed himself to
love another man. He said it was the moment he
stopped struggling with his sexuality internally.
He found peace. But the timing. I mean, you look
at the dates and it's just. It's devastating.
They had six months, six months of real happiness.
Then Anselmo gets a fever that won't go away.
He goes to the doctor. It's HIV. And this is
1991. That diagnosis is a death sentence. It
was a death sentence. There were no protease
inhibitors yet, no heart therapy. It was a waiting
game and everyone knew how it would end. So George
Michael, who is fighting Sony in court trying
to dismantle his public image, is also secretly
nursing his dying partner. And he can't tell
anyone. Why couldn't he tell anyone? His family.
His friends. Because he wasn't out. He was terrified
of the British tabloids destroying Anselmo's
privacy, of hounding his family. He was terrified
of his mother finding out and the shock it would
cause her. So he lived this horrific double life
of global fame and private agonizing grief. And
Anselmo died in March of 1993. Of a brain hemorrhage
related to AIDS. Yeah. And George, he just went
dark after that. Professionally silent. He went
dark and he wrote the song Jesus to a Child was
a result. He said he wrote it in about an hour.
It's a direct address to Anselmo. Kindness in
your eyes, I guess you heard me cry. When he
finally released it in 1996 on the album Older,
the press didn't know who it was about. They
thought it was literally about Jesus or a child.
And Older as an album is so different. It's much
jazzier. It's darker. It sounds like a man in
mourning. It is a grief album from start to finish.
Yeah. But just as he's releasing this tribute
to his lost love, his mother, Leslie, dies of
cancer in 1997. So within four years, he loses
his partner and his mother, the two people he
loved the most in the world. He was absolutely
hollowed out. Which brings us to 1998, the year
the dam finally broke, the restroom incident.
April 7th, 1998, Will Rogers Memorial Park in
Beverly Hills, a very nice upscale public park.
George walks into the public restroom. An undercover
police officer, Marcelo Rodriguez, follows him
in. And this was a sting operation, right? They
were specifically targeting gay cruising in that
park. It was, yes. The officer engaged George
in conversation. George allegedly responded and
the handcuffs came out. He was arrested for engaging
in a lewd act. The press had an absolute field
day. The puns were just, they were brutal. Zip
me up before you go -go. Awful. In 1998, this
was usually a career ender. You were supposed
to go on Oprah, cry, say you have a problem,
and check into rehab. Right. The script was written.
It was shame and redemption. But... George looked
at that script and he just threw it in the trash.
He went on CNN, sat down with Jim Ray and just
ummed it. He did. He said, I'm not good at playing
the game. He didn't apologize for being gay.
He apologized to his fans for the mess in the
headlines, but he pointedly did not apologize
for his sexuality. And then he released Outside.
The ultimate power move. He writes a disco funk
song about getting arrested for cruising. The
lyrics are hilarious. I'd service the community,
but I already have, you see. And the video. The
video is incredible. He turns the public restroom
into a disco, complete with a disco ball over
the urinals. He dresses up as a cop. He has two
male police officers making out passionately.
It was pure satire. He took the weapon the media
was using to beat him. The shame of cruising.
And he turned it into a celebration. It felt
like a real cultural turning point. Before that,
being outed was always a tragedy. George made
it, I don't know, boring. Or at least he refused
to be the victim in the story. He humanized the
messy gay celebrity. He showed you could be arrested
in the public toilet and still be cool and still
be talented and still be completely defiant about
it. Which was incredibly empowering for a lot
of people who were used to seeing gay public
figures only as either tragic victims or as punchlines.
But here's the thing that really gets me, and
it's the other side of this coin. While he's
being this loud, defiant, I do what I want figure
in public, there is this whole other frequency
he's operating on. The silent philanthropist.
Yes. This is the part of the story that still
gives me chills. I mean, we knew he did Band
-Aid. We knew he sang on Do They Know It's Christmas.
Sure, big public stuff. But we had no idea. about
the day -to -day scale of his giving until after
he died. Because he made people keep it secret.
He didn't want the credit. There are stories
of him making charities sign non -disclosure
agreements. He was obsessive about the anonymity.
He didn't want it to look like a PR stunt. Exactly.
Let's look at the deal or no deal story. This
one went viral right after he passed. It's a
perfect example of how he operated. George is
sitting at home, probably high, just watching
Channel 4 in the afternoon. He sees a woman on
the game show Deal or No. deal. And she explains
that she needs 15 ,000 pounds to pay for IVF
treatment because she and her partner are desperate
for a baby and can't afford it. He doesn't know
her from Adam. Total stranger. He just picks
up the phone and calls the TV station. And says
what? Hi, I'm George Michael. Here's a check.
He contacted the producers and said, I want to
pay for her treatment, the full amount, but you
cannot tell her it's from me. He transferred
the money the next day. She got the treatment.
And she had a baby. She had a baby. And she had
no idea it was George Michael who paid for it
until a journalist told her after he died. That
is about control, isn't it? In his own life,
he felt so out of control. The press, the cops,
the grief, the fame. But here, he could secretly
play God in this benevolent way. He could fix
a life with a single phone call. I think that's
a great analysis. It was about agency. There's
another story about a barmaid. He was sitting
in a cafe, overheard a woman crying to her friend
about her crippling student debt. She was a student
nurse. When he left, he asked the manager to
give her a check for 5 ,000 pounds. Just, here,
fix it, and walked away. And he was volunteering,
actually physically showing up to places. For
years, yeah. He volunteered at a homeless shelter.
He would just show up, put on an apron, and start
cleaning or serving food. And he asked the other
volunteers, please, please don't tell the press
I'm here. And they didn't. It's amazing that
in London, with the tabloids being what they
are, that secret actually held for years. It
is. And then there are the royalties. This is
the big money. The really big money. He gave
all the royalties from Jesus to a Child to the
charity Childline. The founder, Dame Esther Ranson,
later said he gave them millions over the years
and insisted it stay anonymous. Wow. The proceeds
from his duet with Elton John, Don't Let the
Sun Go Down on Me, were split among a number
of charities, including the London Lighthouse,
which was an AIDS hospice, and the Rainbow Trust
for Terminally Ill Children. He was basically
a one -man welfare state for certain causes.
he cared about. It really complicates that hedonist
narrative. The papers painted him as this selfish,
drug -addled guy crashing his car into shops.
But quietly, he was funding IVF treatments and
keeping children's charities afloat. It poses
the question, who was the real George? The guy
passed out in the Range Rover or the guy secretly
paying a stranger's medical bills? The answer,
obviously, is that he was both. We have to address
the decline, though. Because the 2000s and 2010s
were not kind to him. The music really slowed
down and the mug shots started to pile up. It
was a pretty clear spiral. He was very open about
his cannabis use. He admitted at one point to
smoking up to 25 spliffs a day. But it was clearly
a form of self -medication. For what? For the
grief, for the pressure, for chronic insomnia.
He was mixing sleeping pills with weed and other
substances, which is just a recipe for disaster.
And that led directly to the Snappy Snaps incident.
July 2010, he's driving home from the London
Gay Pride Parade. He's high. And he crashes his
Range Rover directly into the front of a Snappy
Snaps photo. developing shop in Hampstead. There's
a dark, dark irony there. A man who was hounded
by photographers his entire life crashes his
car into a photo developing shop. And to make
it even more surreal, someone later spray painted
wham on the wall where he hit it. British humor
is ruthless. It is. But he went to prison for
that. He served four weeks at High Point Prison.
He later said it was horrific, but he also said
he deserved it. He knew he was a danger on the
road. And then the health scares start. The pneumonia
in 2011 was terrifying. He nearly died. He was
on tour in Vienna and he just collapsed. He fell
into a coma. His lungs completely stopped functioning.
They had to perform a tracheotomy just to keep
him breathing. And he was unconscious for weeks.
For weeks. When he finally woke up. He had foreign
accent syndrome. Wait, what? It's a real thing.
It's a very rare neurological condition that
can be triggered by brain injury or severe trauma.
For a few days after he woke up, he spoke with
a West Country accent. Like a farmer from Bristol.
Exactly. He said he was terrified it was permanent.
Thankfully, it faded, but it just shows you how
much trauma his body and brain had been through.
And then, as if that wasn't enough, there was
the car crash on the M1 motorway where he fell
out of the vehicle. That was in 2013. He was
a passenger in a car going about 70 miles per
hour. He apparently tried to close the door because
it wasn't shut properly and he just fell out.
Onto the motorway. Onto the motorway. He suffered
another significant head injury. It was just
one calamity after another. It really felt like
he was fading away in those last few years. And
then Christmas Day 2016. The final poetic tragic
irony. The man who wrote the most famous Christmas
song of the modern era dies on Christmas Day.
His partner at the time, Fadi Fawaz, found him
in bed. The cause of death was dilated cardiomyopathy
with myocarditis and a fatty liver. Basically
heart failure. He was 53 years old. It was a
shock to the world, but looking at the medical
history we just discussed, maybe it wasn't a
complete surprise. His body just gave out the
grief, the constant stress, the substance abuse,
the pneumonia, the multiple head injuries. It
was all just too much. But even in death, he
managed one last incredible chart feat. Last
Christmas. The song that was famously stuck at
number two in the UK in 1984 because it was blocked
by his own song, Band -Aid's Do They Know It's
Christmas. Right. It finally hit number one in
the UK in January of 2021. 36 years after it
was released, the fans campaigned for it. It
felt like a final thank you from the country.
So we've covered the tragedy, the comedy, the
lawsuits, the secrets. We step all the way back.
What is the legacy here? Is it the music or is
it the complicated life? I think you have to
start with the voice. We get so caught up in
all the drama that we sometimes forget. George
Michael was a technician. He was a vocal virtuoso.
The Freddie Mercury tribute concert is the ultimate
proof of that. Oh, absolutely. It's 1992, Wembley
Stadium. Everyone is there. Bowie, Elton John,
Axl Rose. And they're all struggling to sing
Freddie songs because Freddie's range and power
were just... freakish. Then George walks out
to sing Somebody to Love. And he doesn't just
sing it. He absolutely devours it. He inhabits
it. There's that moment where he hits the big
high note and the entire stadium just erupts.
You can see David Bowie backstage. He's having
a cigarette and he's looking at a monitor and
he just smiles like, yep, he's got it. Brian
May from Queen said George was the only one who
could truly handle the vocal load that day. That
performance is his musical epitaph. It proved
to everyone, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
he wasn't just a pop star. He was a world -class
soul singer. And what about socially? His cultural
impact? He shifted the window of what was possible.
He proved you could fight the industry and survive
even if you lose the battle. He proved you could
be an unapologetic gay sex symbol on a global
scale. And he proved you could be incredibly
generous without needing praise for it. He left
a blueprint for the modern pop star how to be
messy and honest and complicated and brilliant
all at the same time. It's the full journey from
the busker singing Queen deep cuts in the tube
to the legend replacing Queen on stage at Wembley.
And doing it all on his own terms, even if those
terms were at times incredibly self -destructive.
I think that's where we have to leave it. George
Michael spent the first half of his life building
a mask and the second half tearing it off piece
by piece in front of all of us. And in a world
where every celebrity Instagram feed is perfectly
curated, filtered, and PR approved, George's
messy, honest, unsanitized life feels incredibly
refreshing. He showed us that you can be a hero
in a disaster, sometimes in the same afternoon.
And maybe the true measure of a legacy isn't
the records you sold or the stadiums you filled,
but the secrets you kept. the quiet anonymous
acts of kindness that no one knew about until
you were gone. Couldn't have said it better myself.