George Michael
- Profession: Musician
- Place/Date of Birth: Finchley, 25 June 2020
George heads charity bash - 19/09/03
George Michael has joined other prominent celebrities at a campaign launch to help raise money for terminally ill children.
George is one of the patrons for the The Rainbow Trust - a charity that offers care and support to families with a terminally ill child. He said ’It is an amazing charity. It cares for children who are potentially terminally ill. Loss is such an incredibly difficult thing. I bow down to people who actually have to deal with the loss of a child.’
Other celebs include Julie Walters, Gary Rhodes and Linford Christie.
If you were famous, what charity would you support?Talk about this on our message board
George Michael visits Albert Square - 26/06/03
Part-time Hampstead resident George Michael has visited the set of Eastenders as a present for his 40th birthday.
George’s boyfriend Kenny Goss set up the surprise birthday gift. George, has been a long-time fan of EastEnders, and met some of the cast on his visit - including Kat Slater, played by Jessie Wallace.
A spokeswoman for EastEnders said he was fascinated by how the programme was put together and said he had a fantastic time.
George Michael in BBC war row - 07/03/03
Part-time Hampstead resident George Michael has accused Top Of The Pops of ordering him not to wear an anti-war T-shirt on air.
The star, who recorded a version of protest song The Grave for the show, said the BBC refused to let him wear a T-shirt bearing the words "No, war, Blair out".
His spokeswoman said he was "very upset" at having to change for the performance of the Don McLean song, which will be aired on BBC One on Friday.
A BBC statement said. "We are not giving George Michael a platform to air his political views, we are giving viewers the fantastic opportunity to see an international star perform on TOTP for the first time in 17 years."
"Don’t do it" begs George Michael - 26/02/03
Part-time Hampstead resident and superstar George Michael has pleaded to pop stars to abandon plans for an anti-war charity record because he says they do not know enough about politics.
Blue singer Lee Ryan wants to enlist the likes of Kylie Minogue, Justin Timberlake and Pink on a new Band Aid style song against war.
Michael, however, has made his feelings clear, he believes that the stars of today are too manufactured and too trivial for their song to be taken seriously.
He told the BBC that those involved would be "extremely young and extremely lacking" in political knowledge.
Michael donates ?50,000 to This Morning appeal - 14/12/02
Hampstead superstar George Michael has sent a ?50,000 cheque to TV’s This Morning to help the show’s annual appeal.
The singer passed the cheque on to the show after seeing a discussion of the programme’s new Pass The Parcel fundraiser.
The Salvation Army is collecting and distributing the presents. A spokeswoman for the show said: "George loves This Morning and watches it every day. He watched the appeal and decided that it was something he wanted to do and sent a cheque in to us."
George Michael to be sued - 04/12/02
Part-time Hampstead resident George Michael looks set to be sued. A Los Angeles appeals court has paved the way for the police officer who arrested George Michael in a park toilet to sue him for slander.
Judges reinstated a ?6.5 million slander action after ruling two to one that Michael made allegations that went beyond general statements of opinion.
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Michael had hit after hit with Wham! - Club Tropicana, Wham Rap, Wake me Up Before You Go Go all remain classics, featuring on every best of the eighties compilation going. Whilst in Wham! George had solo success with one of his most famous hits, Careless Whisper.
When the mighty Wham! split in 1986 Michael found he had to prove himself to music critics who thought he was just another flash in the pan boy band reject. He did it easily with hit after hit, a duet with Aretha Franklin and a blue eyed soul boy image. In the nineties he kept the good work up, duetting with Elton John on Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me and in 1992 was announced to be one of the richest men in the UK thanks to incredible record sales.
But in the mid to late nineties things started to turn sour with George’s record label, Sony and despite producing one of the most successful albums of the decade with Older, he left Sony to create his own label - Aegean Records. A year later George hit the headlines after being arrested for committing ’lewd acts’ in a public toilet (you all know that story), forcing the singer to come out publicly.
Many thought it would be the end of his career, but the master of reinvention hit back with arguably his finest single to date, Outside. The video for his hit single featured the cheeky Greek dressed as a policeman gyrating about a disco-balled toilet, a great two fingers up to the press and police who had outed him. George has since played up his gayness, recently telling the world about his ’open relationship’ with boyfriend Kenny Goss and his ’Vanilla’ tastes in sex. In between revealing all he has become increasingly political, releasing slated single Freeeek!, an anti Iraq war song and using interviews to champion the causes close to his heart.
The ex Wham! star remains a force to be reckoned with even after announcing that he is bowing out of the music business to release his recordings online for free. Good news for skint George Michael fans, not so much for the industry.
By Laura Walton
October 2007