George Michael Forum

Michael: And first on the couch, perhaps the most written about pop-star of the day, George Michael. Well, now the big news – Wham! has split up. Now, what’s it all about?

George: Um… Oh basically, I-I suppose the big news is that it’s not really quite time for the big news. What’ve actually happened was about seven months ago, Andrew and I decided that… we thought what we wanted to achieve four years ago when we formed the band had been just about achieved, and the… whatever we do from now on will be a main… a matter of maintaining and make s… making sure that people don’t get a chance to say we’ve finished, and we thought that wouldn… that wasn’t really the way we wanted it to carry on, so erm, we had decided that, erm, we would record a f…, er, a few more singles and we (?) to play Wembley Stadium this summer, and then we were going to actually er, make an announcement, then. Oh, I, I went away to Los Angeles, a little while ago, while I was over there I started to read reports in the papers about, erm, connections between er, my management and uh, and a company that would buy in my management company, erm, and I st… they started to worry me a bit, er, some of th… the er, political connections started to m… worry me a bit, so when I came home, I approached my m… my management about it and uh, they couldn’t actually convince me that, erm, the press reports were actually untrue. Unfortunately, Andrew at the time was racing in Monaco, and, erm, I was trying t… I was, I waited for er, two or three days, we were trying to get through to Andrew, Andrew hadn’t left his number with anybody, which is fairly typical of Andrew, and, and basically I had to m…release my press statement earlier than, than erm, I talked to Andrew. So erm, what happened was that the statement came across at something erm, about me leaving Andrew behind as opposed to the management behind, which was really not the case, and Andrew and I are meeting up erm, next week in Los Angeles to uh, record the last Wham! single, and the concert hopefully will go ahead and, and basically there’s absolutely no rift or whatsoever between the two of us, it’s just something that the press have been waiting for for so long… (Michael: Hmm) that there are…

Michael: (?) summertime gentle, amicable party?

George: Yeah, I w… I think basically we wanna turn it all around, I mean there’s no point in trying to tell people that we’re not splitting up (Michael: Hmm), but um, I think it should be the most er, amicable split in pop history, if we do it properly.

Michael: It’s interesting, isn’t it, that er, and I’m sure you will agree at the… an odd fact that the pop stars, even internationally famous ones, could knock off world political crisis off the front page, it’s a funny business, isn’t it?

George: I find it quite sad that really, it’s… i… th-th-the papers have started to become much more like pop comics, you know. And although it’s, it w… it’s, i… I (?) there’s no way I would deny I enjoy being a star, there is a point where being a star becomes being erm, an object of, of trivia really, when all people wanna write about you, it’s er, you know, that you feed your cat regularly or that er, that, er, you pay, you er, you paid your dancers three years ago twelve pounds fifty a night.

Michael: But you do feed your cat, don’t you?

George: Oh, I do! Absolutely! I mean, it’s not, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the things that have happened to me in last three or four years, I do, but I-I do find it very hard to come to terms with the fact that people have, have formed this, this erm, this image of me which is basically based on, on the press’s speculations cause I don’t talk to the press, I haven’t talked to the press since China.

Michael: So you’re generally… Are you amazed by what is written about you?

George: Erm, er, I am quite amazed, yeah, I am quite amazed and, and most of the time quite amused. I just, it’s just a bit difficult to have to try and prove to everyone that you meet that you’re not, you know, like brain dead, cause that’s what, that’s the type of impression I think people have of me through the papers, you know.

Michael: Let’s talk about the image building, then, cause Cliff Richard was on the show last week and, and was talking about the way he built his image which was actually before you were born, er, how did, how did you go about your image building?

George: Erm well, it was, it was a strange process actually, when, when we were, erm, initially er, thrown into the spotlight, as they say, err, we’d both just, um, come from school about nine months before, Andrew was on the dole, and I was doing some, I was doing two part-time jobs, I-I said I was at the d… on the dole at the time, cause it was very trendy at the time to be on the dole, as far as the music press was concerned, so we were both, you know, dole boys. We then suddenly realised that we had to change, change that image if you like to call it that, because we weren’r really, we weren’t really, erm, living normal lives, and we were, in terms of… we weren’t, you know, we weren’t on the dole, we weren’t, erm, going to pubs every night the way we had done before, there were certain restrictions that we had on ourselves and certain business things that we were doing everyday of our lives which had nothing to do with the people that, that, erm, were buying our records, so we thought this is all gonna (?) be a fake, which is why we went into this kind of, you know, whole suntan and the, the kind of high-gloss image. Which again, it worked, and I think it was honest because, you know, we were filming in hot places and things like that, and we were wearing shirts and like that, but, er…

Michael: But two earrings, George, that’s (?)

George: Oh, the two ear… the two earrings story is quite good actually, because, erm, what happened was Andrew originally erm, wore two earrings about two, three years before, erm, Wham! started, and my Mum and Dad didn’t like Andrew very much, you see, because, you know, it’s a typical story, you know, when you get, when you get to about twelve or thirteen at school and you suddenly realise that there are better things to do that homework or whatever, and er, you start, you have the normal interests that thirteen or fourteen-year-old boys have, and erm…

Michael: Bicycles, things like that?

George: Bicycles, yeah, and, erm, collecting football cards and things like that.

Michael: Yeah.

George: And, erm, and my dad said to me, ‘You ever come home with two earrings’, he said, ‘And you’ll be out that door’, right. So my Dad actually meant it, cause he’s Greek, my father, Greek-Cypriot, and, er, I think he meant what he said. So, I used to think, oh well, one day, one day. And then eventually we got a record contract, and the day after we got a record contract I went to Selfridges and had both my ears shot, you know. And er, I went home like, you know, (?) through the door, (?) kind of fear, and n-not a word was said. I think he, I think he thought it was business, you know, once you’ve had a record contract, you had a business (?)

Michael: (?)

George: Oh (?).

Michael: I must say the audiences of yours look terrifying, do they ever frighten you?

George: They, they, they don’t usually terrify me, I’m not terrified in front of my own audience, because I like to think that if someone’s (?) for a (?) quid to go and see you, then it’s because they have bought your records or because, because they want to see you. Erm…

Michael: But then you do face physical danger at times? Missiles and stuff?

George: Yeah, well, um, they… th… I think that (?) it’s funny, but, but the worst things that get thrown at you are thrown in, in perfectly… with, with goodwill, do you know what I mean? I, I had an experience in, in America, there was, I think it was erm, Philadelphia or San-Francisco, we played one, one particular occasion we played to er, about thirteen thousand people on the first American tour. And we were just getting pelted with objects, people were kind of so frantic to make some kind of contact, or get some reaction that they’d just throw anything that they had in their pockets or on their person, right? So you get like books thrown at you, and you get… I say, and one night this Duracell hit me like, like straight, straight between the eyes and I nearly fell over, and Andrew, Andrew actually stopped the band for a minute and, and you know, it was really strange to hear him saying, ‘Please, don’t throw things at George’, you know, it’s… it’s like, you know, ‘What I’ve done wrong?’ (?), but they basically, they just wanted some kind of reaction.

Michael: They probably threw several batteries, but only the Duracell got to (?)

George: Oh, yeah!

Michael: You were… have you ever been obsessed by music, or by any other ambitions?

George: Erm, when I was very young, I wanted to be a pilot, because when I was five I had this girlfriend who was going to be a stewardess, erm, and then, then when I was about seven, erm, I went for one of the, the regular, erm, eye tests, and you know, you s… you get one of those cards with all the dots on it, and you’re supposed to see fifty-six, and I could see twenty-seven, you know. (?) if you (?) see the wrong numbers, then you’ve definitely got something wrong with your, your c… your vision, and I’m just slightly red-green colourblind, erm, so, you know, I, I think I’m wearing blue and, and er, li…like a deep yellow. (?) it’s not that bad, it’s just… it’s just that you cannot (?) red-green colourblind, red and green are fairly important colours, to people who try to wave down planes and things (?), and erm, and th… I think they, they told me that, that being a pilot was definitely out. So I gave up on that and that was about the same time that my mother and father bought me a radio, and er, basically all my other interests just disappeared once I had that radio.

Michael: But they, did they regret that until you became a star, they had other hopes for you, of course.

George: Oh, they had, they (?) for years and years, I spent my whole erm, childhood between seven and about, well, really until the day that I got my co… my record contract having rows with my parents and specifically my father because, um, erm, he’s not, not very musical, to put it mildly, and, and I don’t suppose, I can’t blame him, I mean, you know, he had no idea about um, about what possibilities there were for me, and uh, he just c… (прим.скриптера – хотел сказать ‘considered’), looked at it as a very, very dodgy profession to wanna go into.

Michael: What about…

George: Now, of course…

Michael: Yes, now, do they go to your concerts (?)

George: He sits at home and waits for the cheques, the p… (?)

Michael: (?)

George: (?) he’s great, he’s, he, he came round very, very, erm, very dignif… with (?) of dignity, he ju… he just uh, accepted that he’d been wrong, and uh…

Michael: Hmm… And you were (?)

George: And waited for the cheques.

Michael: Yeah. (?), did he actually go to the concerts?

George: Oh, yeah, the… my, my Mum and Dad come to erm, just about every concert. My Mother is actually, erm, if it weren’t for the fact that I, I suppose there’s a, there’s a, a very, there’s a lot of pride in, in seeing your son up on stage, I suppose, if it weren’t for that I’d probably, erm, had to, er, commit it after the first com... concert, because she’s like, she’s amazing, she’s so reserved, my Mum, she’s really quiet, really reserved, very English, and, and yet the minute that the curtains part on one of our gigs, it’s just like she’s down there at the front, she’s like, I, I’d seen my mother being helped over barriers by security, she was (?), you know (?) halfway through your number you can see this commotion going on halfway down the, the hall, it’s your Mum trying to climb the barrier. She’s (?) she’s absolutely amazing.

Michael: Oh, you can’t (?) You’re twenty-two now, aren’t you, and you (George: Twenty-two, yeah), you’re immensely rich, what do you enjoy most about fame and fortune?

George: Um, what do I enjoy the most, I think really more that anything I enjoy the, um, the freedom, there are two things I think in, in life that give you freedom, one of… one is success in your own particular field, and er, one is money obviously, and, and I’ve got no real regard for money past security and comfort. I mean, I’m not a buyer, I don’t buy things, you know, I… if I can’t wear it or I can’t eat it I’m not really that bothered, you know, and that’s, you know, I-I have, I’ve got a small house, I’m not trying to sound like you know, I’m very humble, but I’ve got a small house cause it’s all I need, erm, which I rent actually, everyone’s telling me to buy it but I still rent it.

Michael: Oh, you must buy it.

George: Err, and I basically don’t spend money on, on anything but my pro… my profession, I mean I love being able to put money back into what I do professionally.

Michael: I hope that you do what you want to do in the future, you obviously will live with a mind of your own, and it’s been very good to meet you, thank you very much (George: Thank you very much). George Michael!