“It takes so much strength to say to your ego, ‘You know what? You’re going to keep me lonely, so I have to ignore you.’”
“I have never thought about my sexuality being right or wrong. To me it has always been a case of finding the right person.”
“You’ll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.”
“I don’t really have any traits that I deplore. I get annoyed with myself sometimes, but that’s about it.”
“The whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it’s total crap to pretend it’s not.”
“Anybody who fights for human rights or to make this world a better place. Nurses, doctors, teachers: these are the people who deserve the credit these days.”
“I think the media is a real demon.”
“My ego is sated.”
“Not many people are really that meticulous with what they do, I suppose, but I’m just a control freak and terribly afraid of failure or regret. I work very hard on these things.”
“I had very little fear about it, but basically, my straight friends talked me out of it. I think they thought as I was bisexual, there was no need to. But it’s amazing how much more complicated it became because I didn’t come out in the early days. I often wonder if my career would have taken a different path if I had.”
“I went through a long period where I was afraid of doing things I wanted to do, and you get your courage back, which is what’s important.”
“I don’t consider Americans bullies, but I do consider the American government bullying.”
“I had to walk away from America, and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career, because I knew otherwise my demons would get the better of me.”
“I spent years growing up being told what my sexuality was.”
“I still believe that music is one of the greatest gifts that God gave to man.”
“It’s important to me that I should be free to express myself.”
“There’s no comfort in the truth, pain is all you’ll find.”
“I have never felt any ethnic connection between the Greeks and me other than how hairy I am.”
“I try very hard to thank my lucky stars and keep it all in proportion and perspective, but it can be very tiring having a smiley face all day.”
“I never minded being thought of as a pop star. People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn’t, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely serious about pop music.”
“I would advise any gay person that being out in the real sense can never happen too soon.”
“I am a political person, though not with a big P.”
“I’ve written a whole body of work that I’m incredibly proud of.”
“It’s only when the kids are in their late twenties that families really face up to what they are.”
“Deep down, my ego always thought that I would outlast a lot of people that I was competing against.”
“I’m 10-12 years into life as an out gay man, and I’m a different person. I think there are things about my journey that might be useful to other people, and coming up with a hit record on its own doesn’t seem to be enough anymore.”
“I realised those things my ego needed – fame and success – were going to make me terribly unhappy. So I wrenched myself away from that. I had to. I had to walk away from America and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career because I knew, otherwise, my demons would get the better of me.”
“Celebrity and secrets don’t go together. The bastards will get you in the end.”
“I’ve achieved what every artist wants, which is that some of their work will outlive them.”
“Your political system is actually too democratic. The fact that Americans vote on every bill and proposition can prolong bigotry indefinitely, especially where it is aimed at minority groups.”
“With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people’s self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.”
“Of course, I want to sell this record – there’s no point making it otherwise.”
“My American gay audience have continued to dance and sing to the music I make in a way that straight Americans haven’t. I am grateful to them for that.”
“I’ve never done anything so political before. I’ve spent years shouting my mouth off about serious issues over dinner tables but never really had the confidence to express my views in a song.”
“I’m not anti-American. I’ve lived with Kenny, a Texan, for six years.”
“I want to make a pop album – something more upbeat than my stuff was in the ’90s.”
“I think for most of us, our biggest frailties are sexual.”
“I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 – in certain parts of the world anyway.”
“I define my sexuality in terms of the people that I love.”
“Everything was going my way. I was happily marching into the history books. Then it all just fell apart.”
“It’s absolutely essential that we have the same safeguards that straight couples do. But I want more than a 50 percent chance of success. I don’t want to emulate that.”
“If I can just live further from the spotlight I think that’ll be better for all really.”
“I have more love, success, and security than I could ever dream of.”
“I’m the luckiest writer on earth.”
“I don’t really think that there is anyone in the modern pop business who I feel I want to spar with.”
“It’s almost required with major artists that there’s some duality. And I’ve got duality everywhere.”
“I’ve been very well remunerated for my talents over the years so I really don’t need the public’s money.”
“The truth is my love life has been a lot more turbulent than I have let on.”
“You can’t imagine what it’s like playing to people who have been loyal to you for 25 years and haven’t seen you for 15.”
“I mean, I’ve done different things at different times that I shouldn’t have done, once or twice, you know.”
“I watch people who are not driven by creativity any more, and I think how dull it must be to produce the same kind of thing. If you don’t feel you’re reaching something new, then don’t do it.”
“I’m surprised that I’ve survived my own dysfunction, really.”
“The ’90s were a bit of a disaster for me in so many ways. On a personal level, I don’t think I could have toured. Also, I had some physical problems with my back that are now sorted and I just wasn’t in the right state of mind.”
“I have got other interests than just making music. I would like to follow those interests through.”
“I’m not a novelty act from the ’80s in most parts of the world.”
“I really have no plans for any kind of career in TV or anything, but if I wanted to become good at it, I could. But I don’t really think it’s in the cards.”
“I don’t have joy in watching myself, whereas, actually, I quite like listening to my own music.”
“The fact I had my father as an adversary was such a powerful tool to work with. I subconsciously fought him to the degree that I drove me to be one of the most successful musician in the world.”
“My depression at the end of Wham! was because I was beginning to realise I was gay, not bi.”
“I’m just not security-minded.”
“If someone really wants to hurt you, they’ll find a way whatever. I don’t want to live my life worrying about it.”
“I can’t bear Catholicism.”
“I went to prison, I paid my bill.”
“I’m lucky to be alive.”
“I have to believe that somebody up there thinks I’ve still got some work to do.”
“There is no such thing as a reluctant star.”
“Stars are almost always people that want to make up for their own weaknesses by being loved by the public and I’m no exception to that.”
“I don’t want to look at other people my age in leather. Why would I put it on?”
“I find it too terrifying to go out in L.A.”
“English people have seen me get through scandals.”
“I have the audience I deserve. Or at least I have the audience that represents the kind of people that I like.”
“I’ve always been the porky boy in my head.”
“I know I have a very self-destructive tendency since my mother died, I have got to be honest.”
“I write about my life.”
“I do want people to know that the songs that I wrote when I was with women were really about women. And the songs that I’ve written since have been fairly obvious about men.”
“I am really not interested or excited by repeating former successes.”
“Even though it’s become a really cliched thing to see musicians working for charity, it’s still effective and it still has to be done.”
“The media has affected everybody’s consciousness much more than most people will admit.”
“Because of the media, the way the world is perceived is as a place where resources and time are running out. We’re taught that you have to grab what you can before it’s gone. It’s almost as if there isn’t time for compassion.”
“Is my body a temple, or is my life a temple? I’m definitely in the latter category, and I think my life has been better since thinking that way.”
“You can’t have a child just to keep a relationship together, can you?”
“In the very early days of Wham! the attention felt great, but I do wonder how much freedom I gave away by trying to become something I wasn’t.”
“I owe my mother who I am, and my father my drive.”
“I spent the first half of my career being accused of being gay when I hadn’t had anything like a gay relationship.”
“In terms of my work, I’ve never been reticent in terms of defining my sexuality. I write about my life.”
“A lot of people like me, who’ve been around for years and years and years, only really lose it in their forties and fifties.”
“There are so many things and so many aspects to gay life that I’ve discovered and so many things to write about. I have a new life, and I have a new take on dance music because of that life.”
“The first sign of real obsession with music was with an old wind-up gramophone that mum had thrown out into the garage. My parents gave me three old 45s – two Supremes records and one Tom Jones record – and I used to come home from school literally every day, go out to the garage, wind this thing up, and play them.”
“There are things about my mum that I only realised later, things that make me admire her.”
“I had been obsessed with insects and creepy-crawlies: I used to get up at five o’clock in the morning and go out into this field behind our garden and collect insects before everyone else got up, and suddenly, all I wanted to know about was music. It just seemed a very, very strange thing.”
“I never really told my parents that I wanted to be a pop star or anything. They just knew that I was totally obsessed with music. Funnily enough, my father always used to say that he didn’t think I could sing.”
“If you don’t feel you’re reaching something new, then don’t do it.”
“I have no belief in The Bible or religion, but I think Armageddon was a lucky guess. I honestly think it’s going to happen.”
“Apart from some of the videos and haircuts, I don’t think I’ve made any wrong moves, ha ha!”
“I was brought up when media still kept totally away from violence when it came to children. I don’t think it would have made me scared of violence, but I find it repulsive.”
“I know that I sound self-satisfied, and I know that I’ve got an ego, but I don’t have an ego problem.”
“No one wants to look wholesome at 21!”
“I used to believe that George Michael was a total actor. It was self-defeating, because it made me also feel fraudulent.”
“For some strange reason, my gay life didn’t get easier when I came out. Quite the opposite happened, really.”
“The press seemed to take some delight that I previously had a ‘straight audience,’ and set about trying to destroy that. And I think some men were frustrated that their girlfriends wouldn’t let go of the idea that George Michael just hadn’t found the ‘right girl.’”
“In the years when HIV was a killer, any parent of an openly gay person was terrified. I knew my mother well enough that she would spend every day praying that I didn’t come across that virus. She’d have worried like that.”
“I knew, regardless of anything else, singing in front of an orchestra was going to be inspirational. It would feed me.”
“I’m not stupid enough to think that I can deal with another 10 or 15 years of major exposure. I think that is the ultimate tragedy of fame… People who are simply out of control, who are lost. I’ve seen so many of them, and I don’t want to be another cliche.”
“I’d like to say things are bound to get better, but I don’t really believe it.”
“It’s strange. At some point in your career, the situation between yourself and the camera reverses. For a certain number of years, you court it and you need it, but ultimately, it needs you more, and it’s a bit like a relationship. The minute that happens, it turns you off… and it does feel like it is taking something from you.”
“When you are trying to express things with metaphors and much more subtlety, that’s when you are doing yourself a disservice by making a video.”
“I’d been out to a lot of people since 19. I wish to God it had happened then. I don’t think I would have the same career – my ego might not have been satisfied in some areas – but I think I would have been a happier man.”
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