George Michael
George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer-songwriter, record producer and philanthropist. Regarded as a pop culture icon,[2] he is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, with his sales estimated at between 100 million to 125 million records worldwide.[3][4] Michael was known as a creative force in songwriting,[5] vocal performance,[6] and visual presentation.[7][8] He achieved 10 number-one songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 and 13 number-one songs on the UK Singles Chart. Michael won numerous music awards, including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. He was listed among Billboard's the "Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time" and Rolling Stone's the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time".[9] The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004.[10] Michael was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.[11]
For other people named George Michael, see George Michael (disambiguation).
George Michael
25 December 2016 (aged 53)
Highgate Cemetery West, London
Yog
- Singer
- songwriter
- record producer
1981–2016
- Anselmo Feleppa (1991–1993)
- Kenny Goss (1996–2009)
- Fadi Fawaz (2012–2016)
- Pop
- dance-pop
- post-disco
- R&B
- Vocals
- keyboards
- piano
- bass
- drums
Born in East Finchley, Middlesex, Michael rose to fame after forming the pop duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. Their first two albums, Fantastic (1983) and Make It Big (1984), reached number one on the US Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart. They had commercial success with singles "Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)", "Young Guns (Go for It)", "Bad Boys", "Club Tropicana", "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", "Last Christmas", "Everything She Wants", "Freedom", and "I'm Your Man". Their 1985 tour in China was the first by a Western popular music act, and generated worldwide media coverage.[12][13] Michael took part in Band Aid's UK number-one single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in 1984 and performed at the following year's Live Aid concert.
Michael's first solo single, "Careless Whisper" (1984), reached number one in over 20 countries, including the UK and US.[14][15] The second solo single, "A Different Corner", also reached number one in 1986. After Wham! disbanded that year, Michael released the number-one duet with Aretha Franklin, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)". His debut solo album, Faith (1987), stayed at number one on the Billboard 200 for 12 weeks and topped the UK Albums Chart. It is one of the best-selling albums of all time, having sold over 25 million copies worldwide. The singles "Faith", "Father Figure", "One More Try", and "Monkey" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Michael became the best-selling music artist of 1988, and Faith was awarded Album of the Year at the 1989 Grammy Awards. Michael's second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990), was also a number one in the UK and yielded the Billboard Hot 100 number one "Praying for Time" and the worldwide hit "Freedom! '90".[16] Michael went on to release a series of multimillion-selling albums, including Older (1996), Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael (1998), Songs from the Last Century (1999), Patience (2004), and Twenty Five (2006). The albums earned him multiple hits such as "Jesus to a Child", "Fastlove", "Outside", "Amazing", and "An Easier Affair".
Michael came out as gay in 1998, and was an active LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser. His personal life, drug use, and legal troubles made headlines following an arrest for public lewdness in 1998 and multiple drug-related offences. The 2005 documentary A Different Story covered his career and personal life. Michael's 25 Live tour spanned three tours from 2006 to 2008. Michael fell into a coma in 2011 during a bout with pneumonia, but later recovered. He performed his final concert at London's Earls Court in 2012. Michael died of heart disease on Christmas Day in 2016, at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
Early life
George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (Greek: Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου) on 25 June 1963, in East Finchley.[17][18] His father, Kyriacos "Jack" Panayiotou,[19] was a Greek Cypriot restaurateur who emigrated from Patriki, Cyprus, to England in the 1950s.[20] His mother, Lesley Angold (born Harrison, died 1997),[21][22][23] was an English dancer.[24] In June 2008, Michael told the Los Angeles Times that his maternal grandmother was Jewish, but she married a non-Jewish man and raised her children with no knowledge of their Jewish background due to her fear during World War II.[25] Michael spent most of his childhood in Kingsbury, London, in the home his parents bought soon after his birth; he attended Roe Green Junior School and Kingsbury High School.[26][27] Michael had two sisters: Yioda (born 1958) and Melanie (1960–2019).[21][28] On the BBC's Desert Island Discs, he disclosed that his interest in music followed an injury to his head around the age of eight.[29]
Early music
While Michael was in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett.[30][31] There, Michael began attending Bushey Meads School in Bushey,[32] where he, as "Yog", met, sat down next to, and befriended, his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley. The two had the same career ambition of being musicians.[19] Michael busked on the London Underground, performing songs such as "'39" by Queen.[33] His involvement in the music business began with his working as a DJ, playing at the Bel Air Restaurant in Northwood, London,[34][35][36][37] clubs, and local schools around Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford. This was followed by the formation of a short-lived ska band called the Executive, with Ridgeley, Ridgeley's brother Paul, Andrew Leaver, Jamie Gould, and David Mortimer (later known as David Austin).[38]
Solo career
1987–1989
During early 1987, at the beginning of his solo career, Michael released "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)", a duet with Aretha Franklin. "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" was a one-off project that helped Michael achieve an ambition by singing with one of his favourite artists. It scored number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 upon its release.[49][50] For Michael, it became his third consecutive solo number one in the UK from three releases, after 1984's "Careless Whisper" (though the single was actually from the Wham! album Make It Big) and 1986's "A Different Corner". The single was also the first Michael had recorded as a solo artist which he had not written himself. The co-writer, Simon Climie, was unknown at the time; he later had success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in 1988. Michael and Aretha Franklin won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best R&B Performance – Duo or Group with Vocal for the song.[51]
In late 1987, Michael released his debut solo album, Faith. The first single released from the album was "I Want Your Sex", in mid-1987. The song was banned by many radio stations in the UK and US, due to its sexually suggestive lyrics.[52] MTV broadcast the video, featuring celebrity make-up artist Kathy Jeung in a basque and suspenders, only during the late night hours.[52] Michael argued that the act was beautiful if the sex was monogamous, and he recorded a brief prologue for the video in which he said: "This song is not about casual sex."[53] One of the racier scenes involved Michael writing the words "explore monogamy" on his partner's back in lipstick.[54] Some radio stations played a toned-down version of the song, "I Want Your Love", with the word "love" replacing "sex".[55]
When "I Want Your Sex" reached the US charts, American Top 40 host Casey Kasem refused to say the song's title, referring to it only as "the new single by George Michael."[55] In the US, the song was also sometimes listed as "I Want Your Sex (from Beverly Hills Cop II)", since the song was featured on the soundtrack of the movie.[56] Despite censorship and radio play problems, "I Want Your Sex" reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 in the UK.[14][57] The second single, "Faith", was released in October 1987, a few weeks before the album. "Faith" became one of his most popular songs. The song was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for four consecutive weeks, becoming the best-selling single of 1988 in the US.[15] It also reached No. 1 in Australia, and No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart.[14] The video provided some definitive images of the 1980s music industry in the process—Michael in shades, leather jacket, cowboy boots, and Levi's jeans, playing a guitar near a classic-design jukebox.[58]
On 30 October, Faith was released in the UK and in several markets worldwide.[56] Faith topped the UK Albums Chart, and in the US, the album had 51 non-consecutive weeks in the top 10 of Billboard 200, including 12 weeks at No. 1. Faith had many successes, with four singles ("Faith", "Father Figure", "One More Try", and "Monkey") reaching No. 1 in the US.[59] Faith was certified Diamond by the RIAA for sales of 10 million copies in the US.[60] To date, global sales of Faith are more than 25 million units.[61] The album was highly acclaimed by music critics, with AllMusic journalist Steve Huey describing it as a "superbly crafted mainstream pop/rock masterpiece" and "one of the finest pop albums of the '80s".[62] In a review by Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Mark Coleman commended most of the songs on the album, which he said "displays Michael's intuitive understanding of pop music and his increasingly intelligent use of his power to communicate to an ever-growing audience."[63]
In 1988, Michael embarked on a world tour.[64] In Los Angeles, Michael was joined on stage by Aretha Franklin for "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)". It was the second highest grossing event of 1988, earning $17.7 million.[65] At the 1988 Brit Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall on 8 February, Michael received the first of his two awards for Best British Male Solo Artist. Later that month, Faith won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 31st Grammy Awards.[66] At the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards on 6 September in Los Angeles, Michael received the Video Vanguard Award.[67] According to Michael in his film, A Different Story, success did not make him happy and he started to think there was something wrong in being an idol for millions of teenage girls. The whole Faith process (promotion, videos, tour, awards) left him exhausted, lonely and frustrated, and far from his friends and family.[68] In 1990, he told his record company Sony that, for his second album, he did not want to do promotions like the one for Faith.[69]
1990s
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 was released in September 1990. The title is an indication of his desire to be taken more seriously as a songwriter.[70] The album was released in Europe on 3 September 1990, and one week later in the US. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart[14] and peaked at No. 2 on the US Billboard 200.[15] It spent a total of 88 weeks on the UK Albums Chart and was certified four-times Platinum by the BPI.[71] The album produced five UK singles, all of which were released within an eight-month period: "Praying for Time", "Waiting for That Day", "Freedom! '90", "Heal the Pain", and "Cowboys and Angels" (the latter being his only single not to chart in the UK top 40).[14] Michael refused to do any promotion for the album.[69] At the 1991 Brit Awards, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 won the award for Best British Album.[72]
The album's first single, "Praying for Time", with lyrics concerning social ills and injustice, was released in August 1990. James Hunter of Rolling Stone magazine described the song as "a distraught look at the world's astounding woundedness. Michael offers the healing passage of time as the only balm for physical and emotional hunger, poverty, hypocrisy, and hatred."[73] The song was an instant success, reaching No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 6 in the UK.[15] A video was released shortly thereafter, consisting of the lyrics on a dark background. Michael did not appear in this video or any subsequent videos for the album.[70] The second single from Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, "Waiting for That Day", was an acoustic-heavy single, released as an immediate follow-up to "Praying for Time".
"Freedom! '90" was the second of only two singles from Listen Without Prejudice to be supported by a music video (the other being the Michael-less "Praying for Time").[74] The song alludes to his struggles with his artistic identity, and prophesied his efforts shortly thereafter to end his recording contract with Sony Music. As if to prove the song's sentiment, Michael refused to appear in the video (directed by David Fincher), and instead recruited supermodels Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, and Cindy Crawford to appear in and lip sync in his stead.[74] It also featured lyrics critical of his sex symbol status.[75] It reached No. 8 success on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US,[15] and No. 28 on the UK Singles Chart.[14] "Mother's Pride" gained significant radio play in the US during the first Persian Gulf War during 1991, often with radio stations mixing in callers' tributes to soldiers with the music.[76]
Later in 1991, Michael embarked on the Cover to Cover tour in Japan, England, the US, and Brazil, where he performed at Rock in Rio.[77] The tour was not a proper promotion for Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. Rather, it featured Michael singing his favourite cover songs.[77] Among his favourites was "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", a 1974 song by Elton John; Michael and John had performed the song together at the Live Aid concert in 1985, and again for Michael's concert at London's Wembley Arena on 25 March 1991, where the duet was recorded. "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" was released as a single at the end of 1991 and reached No. 1 in both the UK and US.[78] In 1991, Michael released an autobiography through Penguin Books titled Bare, co-written with Tony Parsons.[79]
An expected follow-up album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 2, was scrapped due to Michael's lawsuit with Sony.[80] Instead, Michael donated three songs to the charity project Red Hot + Dance, for the Red Hot Organization which raised money for AIDS awareness; a fourth track, "Crazyman Dance", was the B-side of 1992's "Too Funky". Michael donated the royalties from "Too Funky" to the same cause.[81] "Too Funky" reached No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart[14] and No. 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100.[15]
Posthumous releases
On 7 September 2017, Michael's estate released the single "Fantasy". Written and produced by Michael, was recorded while he was working on Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. However, the track was not included on the album. Instead in October 1990, it was featured on the "Waiting for That Day" single in the United Kingdom and on the "Freedom! '90" single in the rest of the world.[143] On 7 September 2017, a new version reworked by Nile Rodgers was released as a single from Listen Without Prejudice / MTV Unplugged (2017).[144] The album includes the original version of "Fantasy" and the 1998 version;[145] the Nile Rodgers remix was not included on the disc but was made available to purchasers as a digital download. On 18 October 2017, a music video was released on Vevo.[146]
In 2019, the Emma Thompson-written film Last Christmas was released. The title of the film is taken from the Wham classic. An official soundtrack album was released by Legacy Recordings on CD, two-disc vinyl, and digital formats on 8 November 2019.[147] The album contains 14 Wham! and solo George Michael songs, as well as a previously unreleased song originally completed in 2015 titled "This Is How (We Want You to Get High)".[148] The soundtrack album debuted at number one on the UK Official Soundtrack Albums Chart and at number 11 on the UK Albums Chart on 15 November 2019.[149][150] It also entered the Australian Albums Chart at number seven,[151] the Irish Albums Chart, where it debuted at number 32, climbing to number 26 the following week, and at number 55 on the US Billboard 200.[152][153]
On 22 June 2022, the documentary film Freedom Uncut was released. Michael had been working on the film shortly before his death, alongside David Austin,[154] and provides the narration throughout.[155] NME, The Guardian and Empire all praised the film and rated it 4/5 stars.[156][157][158] On 30 September 2022, a remastered and expanded version of Older was released comprising the original Older album, the Upper disc and three bonus CDs, containing remixes and live recordings of Older-era tracks.[159] The album charted at number 2 on the UK Official Albums Chart Top 100 on 7 October 2022.[160]
Personal life
Sexuality and relationships
Michael stated that his early fantasies were about women, which "led me to believe I was on the path to heterosexuality", but at puberty he started to fantasise about men, which he later said "had something to do with my environment". At the age of 19, Michael told Andrew Ridgeley that he was bisexual.[161] Michael also told one of his two sisters, but he was advised not to tell his parents about his sexuality.[162] In 1998, not long after he was outed for his sexuality, Michael said on Parkinson that he became confident he was gay when he fell in love with a man.[163] This stance was reiterated in a 1999 interview with The Advocate, where Michael told the editor-in-chief, Judy Wieder, that it was "falling in love with a man that ended his conflict over bisexuality".
"I never had a moral problem with being gay", Michael told her. "I thought I had fallen in love with a woman a couple of times. Then I fell in love with a man, and realised that none of those things had been love."[164]
In 2004, Michael said, "I used to sleep with women quite a lot in the Wham! days but never felt it could develop into a relationship because I knew that, emotionally, I was a gay man. I didn't want to commit to them, but I was attracted to them. Then I became ashamed that I might be using them. I decided I had to stop, which I did when I began to worry about AIDS, which was becoming prevalent in Britain. Although I had always had safe sex, I didn't want to sleep with a woman without telling her I was bisexual. I felt that would be irresponsible. Basically, I didn't want to have that uncomfortable conversation that might ruin the moment, so I stopped sleeping with them." In the same interview, he added: "If I wasn't with Kenny [his boyfriend at the time], I would have sex with women, no question". He said he believed that the formation of his sexuality was "a nurture thing, via the absence of my father who was always busy working. It meant I was exceptionally close to my mother", though he stated that "there are definitely those who have a predisposition to being gay in which the environment is irrelevant."[161] In 2007, Michael said he had hidden his sexuality because of worries over what effect it might have on his mother.[162] Two years later, he added: "My depression at the end of Wham! was because I was beginning to realise I was gay, not bisexual."[165]
During the late 1980s, Michael had a relationship with make-up artist Kathy Jeung, who was regarded for a time as his artistic "muse" and who appeared in the "I Want Your Sex" video.[166] Michael later said that she had been his "only bona fide" girlfriend, and that she knew of his bisexuality.[161] In 2016, Jeung reacted to Michael's death by calling him a "true friend" with whom she had spent "some of the best time of [her] life".[167]
In 1992, Michael established a relationship with Anselmo Feleppa, a Brazilian dress designer whom he had met at the Rock in Rio concert in 1991. Six months into their relationship, Feleppa discovered that he was HIV-positive. Michael later said: "It was terrifying news. I thought I could have the disease too. I couldn't go through it with my family because I didn't know how to share it with them – they didn't even know I was gay."[165] In 1993, Feleppa died of an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage.[168] Michael's single, "Jesus to a Child", is a tribute to Feleppa (Michael consistently dedicated it to him before performing it live), as is his album Older (1996).[169] In 2008, speaking about the loss of Feleppa, Michael said: "It was a terribly depressing time. It took about three years to grieve, then after that I lost my mother. I felt almost like I was cursed."[170]
In 1996, Michael entered into a long-term relationship with Kenny Goss, a former flight attendant, cheerleading coach,[171] and sportswear executive from Dallas, Texas.[172] They had a home in Dallas,[173] a 16th-century house in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire,[174][175] and an £8 million mansion in Highgate, North London.[168] In late November 2005, it was reported that Michael and Goss planned to register their relationship as a civil partnership in the UK,[176] but because of negative publicity and his upcoming tour, they postponed their plans.[177] On 22 August 2011, the opening night of his Symphonica Tour, Michael announced that he and Goss had split two years earlier.[178]
Michael's homosexuality became publicly known following his April 1998 arrest for public lewdness.[179] In 2007, Michael said "that hiding his sexuality made him feel 'fraudulent', and his eventual outing, when he was arrested [...] in 1998, was a subconsciously deliberate act."[180]
In 2012, Michael entered a relationship with Fadi Fawaz, a Lebanese-Australian celebrity hairstylist and freelance photographer based in London.[181][182] It was Fawaz who found Michael's body on Christmas morning 2016.[183][184]
Legal troubles
On 7 April 1998, Michael was arrested for "engaging in a lewd act" in a public restroom of the Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills, California.[185][186] Michael was arrested by undercover policeman Marcelo Rodríguez in a sting operation.[187] In an MTV interview, Michael stated: "I got followed into the restroom and then this cop—I didn't know it was a cop, obviously—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!'"[188]
At the time of his death, Michael was estimated to have sold between 100 million and 125 million records worldwide.[283][284][4] As a solo artist, he sold an estimated over 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists.[283] He is estimated to have sold up to 30 million records with Wham!.[285] His debut solo album Faith sold more than 25 million copies.[286]
Solo discography
Wham! discography
