George Michael: The biography Read online

  Also by Rob Jovanovic:

  Kate Bush: The Biography

  Michael Stipe: The Biography

  Big Star: Rock’s Forgotten Band

  Nirvana: The Complete Recording Sessions

  Perfect Sound Forever: The Story of Pavement

  Adventures in Hi-Fi: The Complete REM

  Beck! On a Backwards River

  Copyright

  Published by Piatkus

  ISBN: 978-0-3494-1124-8

  Copyright © 2007 by Rob Jovanovic

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Piatkus

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  ALSO BY ROB JOVANOVIC

  COPYRIGHT

  Prologue • FINAL

  PART ONE • 1963–1986

  1 IMMIGRANT • 1963–1975

  2 AMBITION • 1975–1981

  3 FANTASTIC • 1982–1983

  4 BIG • 1984–1985

  5 FREEDOM • 1985–1986

  PART TWO • 1986–Present

  6 TOUR • 1986–1989

  7 WITHDRAWAL • 1990–1994

  8 GRIEF • 1994–1997

  9 PHOENIX • 1998–2002

  10 SURVIVOR • 2003–Present

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  CHART POSITIONS

  DISCOGRAPHY

  VIDEOGRAPHY

  COLLABORATIONS

  WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PICTURE CREDITS

  INDEX

  PROLOGUE

  FINAL

  fi•nal

  pertaining to or coming at the end; last in place, order, or time: the final meeting of the year.

  ultimate: The final goal is world peace.

  conclusive or decisive: a final decision.

  constituting the end or purpose: a final result.

  pertaining to or expressing the end or purpose: a final clause.

  ‘I’m constantly reading people’s opinions of me and they’re not that good in general. I’ve never really been able to work from a position where people are very sympathetic with me simply because I’ve always been successful in this country, you’re constantly defending yourself. And when you’re defending yourself you do find that you’re analysing your motives for this, your reasons for that. I have to be careful not to absorb too much of the aggression I get towards me in the press. But I’ve always been pretty self-analytical and my songs have always been like that. But then I’m probably a lot of things I wouldn’t have been had I not become famous.’

  George Michael

  ‘After Wham! split everyone expected better things from me. But I don’t regret the break-up. I had prepared myself for the fact that Wham! was going to end. For the last couple of years, Wham! was very much my venture, anyway, so it wasn’t so frightening. The pressure is on Andrew now. He is working on an album and I’ve advised him. It’s only natural that the public is going to be sceptical about his work. He’s going to surprise them, though, because his music is a lot better than people think.’

  George Michael

  On 28 April 1923 Wembley Stadium hosted its first ever event. The FA Cup final between West Ham United and Bolton Wanderers was a game everyone wanted to see. The official crowd figure is listed at 126,947, though it’s commonly accepted that well over 200,000 were actually crammed inside that afternoon.

  Almost fifty years later, in 1972, Wembley hosted its first concert. But it was in the 1980s that it put on its most famous musical events. Queen recorded a live album there, while Genesis, U2, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson all sold out the 72,000 tickets, sometimes for many consecutive nights. In a decade when bigger was best and money ruled, success meant playing to the biggest, most profitable crowds. And for musicians, playing at Wembley meant you’d made it.

  Growing up in Bushey, just a few miles from the shadow of the stadium’s twin towers, was a young boy who on a good day could almost hear the football chants of ‘Wem-ber-ley, Wem-ber-ley’ drifting over north London. As an adult he would play his music at Wembley Stadium on many occasions. He played there for AIDS charities; he was there for perhaps the grand old stadium’s most famous concert of all – Live Aid; he stole the show at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert; and he performed for Nelson Mandela. It was there too that he performed the swan song for his band Wham!. That boy, of course, was George Michael.

  As Wham!, George and his friend Andrew Ridgeley were to become the most successful pop duo of the 1980s. The two boys, both sons of immigrant fathers, burst on to the scene in 1982. Projecting an image of healthy tanned bodies, big hair and unbelievably white teeth, they were the 1980s to many. They set numerous records, becoming the first group since the Beatles to have back-to-back number one singles in both the USA and the UK. They created a hysteria not witnessed since the Bay City Rollers ten years earlier, tapping into a hormone-charged demographic most people thought had died out with punk and disco. Along with Duran Duran they spawned a new wave of hysteria-driven boy bands: before you knew it Bros, New Kids on the Block et al were driving young girls crazy across the globe, their appearances at record stores bringing city centres to a standstill.

  But by 1986, Wham! had done everything they could together. The pop icons of the decade decided to call it quits. They’d sold millions of records, they’d toured the world, including China, and they had more money than they could spend. So where better to play their final show than at Wembley Stadium? And, at a venue renowned for hosting sporting finals for the last 63 years, what better name to give that last show than The Final?

  A year earlier Wham! had also played to a sold-out Wembley Stadium, on that occasion as just one of a host of big-name acts brought together by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure under the umbrella of Live Aid. George Michael had privately announced his plans to go solo at the end of 1985, and events leading up to Wham!’s last appearance had been carefully planned ever since. Six months later, just as Michael turned 23, the band were sitting at the top of the charts with ‘The Edge Of Heaven’ and were about to unleash a compilation album. The press had been filled with Wham! stories for weeks, set against harrowing tales of the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The last ever Wham! show had sold out in a couple of hours. There had been talk of a ‘Semi-Final’ show on the Friday night, though even that would not have been enough – they could easily have sold out a week of shows. But money wasn’t the issue: after two massive video screens had been paid for, the concert cost around £750,000 to stage (the same as the original cost of building the stadium), and at the end of it they only broke even. And most important, the band wanted a single show to add an emphatic full stop to the ride.

  As a boy, Andrew Ridgeley had dreamt of becoming a professional footballer; now he was going to play at Wembley. It wasn’t what he’d originally had in mind, but it wasn’t a bad second best. On that hot summer’s Saturday afternoon in June 1986 the scene outside the stadium looked like the build-up to a cup final. Flags fluttered in the gentle breeze and Wembley Way, the approach to the twin towers, was packed solid with fans, many bedecked in Wham! T-shirts, scarves and hats. The organisers had kept back thousands of tickets to sell on the day i
n order to scupper the dealings of ticket touts. Queues had been building up at the turnstiles for hours and as soon as they opened, a sea of humanity flooded into the stadium looking for the best vantage points.

  No one at the front would be going anywhere for the next few hours, and security men were soon passing bottles of water to the crowd – bottles which would be replaced by hose pipes as the night wore on. Meanwhile, around the world, millions of fans who hadn’t been able to get tickets held vigils or played Wham! singles over and over all day long. Many teenage tears were shed. It was as if someone or something had died. For many, the end of Wham! signalled the end of youth. It was time to grow up, a frightening prospect for some. Why couldn’t things just stay as they were?

  Backstage there was a mix of sadness and excitement, but for the principal actors in the drama it all passed in a blur. Members of the UK pop elite mingled with friends and family. Elton John set up a paddling pool in the 90-degree heat and served champagne from his trailer. Video game machines were set up to keep people occupied while they waited and waited.

  Asked shortly before going on stage if he had any regrets about the end of the band, George Michael emphatically said no, while Andrew Ridgeley jokingly pretended to strangle his partner. There was a hint of truth behind this gesture, though Ridgeley didn’t tell his partner of his true feelings until a film documentary in 2004. ‘I didn’t enjoy it as much as other shows,’ said the guitarist. ‘The entire period leading up to that was a difficult one for me. I just kept thinking once the encore’s done, that’s it. That was a difficult concept to get to grips with, we just didn’t know how to take the concept of Wham! into adulthood.’

  An out of touch Gary Glitter opened the show at four in the afternoon while the sun still beat down. He was followed by Nick Heyward, ex of Haircut 100, who ended with crowd favourite ‘Fantastic Day’, but who was elsewhere to exemplify what George Michael would have to avoid, a solo career gone bad. Other delights to keep the crowd amused included the first showing of Foreign Skies, the re-edited version of a film about Wham!’s 1985 trip to China. This was projected on the two giant video screens flanking the stage, which was hung with a massive curtain that read ‘THE FINAL’.

  The real drama started at 7.30 pm. The opening notes of ‘Everything She Wants’ rang out over the 72,000 heads and were greeted with mass screaming. Moments later, to even higher-pitched screaming, the curtains were pulled back to reveal the band. To the loudest screams yet, George Michael entered stage right with two male dancers. Dressed in tight black jeans, leather boots and jacket, and the inevitable shades, he and the dancers made their moves, Michael himself taking solo trips down the long catwalks that reached out into the crowd from either side of the stage. When Michael returned to centre stage some three minutes later, Andrew Ridgeley appeared, along with backing singers/dancers Pepsi and Shirlie. He too went on a lengthy walkabout before theatrically removing his long black coat. The near seven-minute introduction over, the song proper kicked in, the whole audience singing along to every word. Every shake of the hips, every glance at the crowd, every nuance was greeted by ear-shattering approval. It was going to be a long night.

  An emotional George Michael made several speeches during the show, saying that he had ‘four years of thank yous to make’. All the hits were played, hits that defined the pop world of the mid-1980s: ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’, ‘I’m Your Man’, ‘Last Christmas’, ‘Club Tropicana’ … the list went on and on. Pepsi and Shirlie underwent several costume changes through the show, appearing for ‘Bad Boys’ in oversized wigs. ‘The whole day was just sparkling,’ recalled Shirlie Holliman. ‘It stopped at a good time, on a high. Everyone was in a great mood and Pepsi and I had these huge beehive wigs to wear, they were very heavy and very funny.’

  Ronald McDonald, who was actually Elton John in fancy dress costume, appeared at a grand piano while George Michael conducted the crowd through ‘yeah, yeah, yeahs’ for ‘The Edge Of Heaven’. The clown stayed around to perform ‘Candle in the Wind’ with George Michael, the pair of them blissfully unaware of the connection the song was to have with Michael’s future friend, Princess Diana.

  As the sun set and the stadium was cloaked in darkness the band cranked up the excitement further with ‘Wham Rap!’ and an emotional ‘A Different Corner’, dedicated to a mystery ‘special friend’. An energetic ‘Freedom’ ended the main set. Encores included ‘Careless Whisper’, ‘Young Guns (Go For It)’ and ‘I’m Your Man’ with Simon Le Bon, a finale for which all the performers took the stage. George and Andrew performed a lap of honour along the catwalks before Ridgeley seized the mic to say ‘Thank you George’.

  And then they were gone. A spectacular end to a spectacular, if short, pop life. After the show the cast and crew decamped to the Hippodrome where the party lasted long into the night. But while millions of fans mourned the end of Wham!, it was just the beginning for George Michael.

  After the end of Wham! in 1986 George Michael set off on an even more wondrous solo career. Stopping off during his first solo world tour, he appeared again at Wembley as part of the Nelson Mandela 70th birthday tribute concert. And, having performed at charity events held at Wembley Arena next door, Michael returned to the stadium in 1992. After enigmatic Queen front man Freddie Mercury passed away in November 1991, the rest of his band arranged an AIDS awareness show in which various guest vocalists took the lead in performing Queen’s back catalogue. And it was Michael who stole the show, giving one of the most impressive and impassioned vocal performances of his career. It wasn’t until years later that the public found out why.

  In the late 1990s it was announced that Wembley would be demolished and a new national stadium would replace it on the same site. Debate raged about incorporating the famous twin towers in the new design but eventually, in 2002, they felt the wrecking ball. Chelsea won the last FA Cup final at the ‘old’ Wembley in 2000, England lost their last game there to Germany, and American rockers Bon Jovi played the last concert.

  As Wembley decayed during the 1990s, so did George Michael’s personal life. After suffering the loss of the two people closest to him, he was beset with grief which he would finally overcome only in the twenty-first century. He was involved in a series of public scandals, though many of these were overplayed by the press. Professionally he was involved with a lengthy court case with his record label, and lost much of his American audience. But after a break of 18 years, during his 25th year in the music business, he felt the time was right to tour again. In the midst of further tabloid stories, Michael returned to touring in 2006, playing a string of European arena shows.

  The keys to the new improved Wembley Stadium were handed over by the contractors to the Football Association in March 2007. The completed stadium was marvellous, with a 300-metre tall arch visible for miles around and a seating capacity of 90,000. Rock band Muse announced they would be appearing at the rebuilt stadium on 16 June 2007 but afterwards it was announced that George Michael would have the honour of playing the first show, on 9 June. The first show sold out so quickly that a second was added for the following day. Alex Horne, managing director of Wembley Stadium, called it ‘fantastic news’ when the shows were announced, adding: ‘[George Michael is] no stranger to this great stage, having performed at the old stadium with both Wham! at Live Aid and as a solo artist. This is a fitting first gig in the new stadium. We are looking forward to putting the stadium back on the world map as a major music destination.’

  When he walked triumphantly out at Wembley, George Michael also put himself back on the musical stage. Like the famous old stadium, he was an English icon that had been resurrected and he could now look forward in his career to a bright new future.

  George Michael is a driven man. He’s hardworking and proud, afraid of money and insecure but incredibly rich and famous. He’s very private but recently has spoken openly about his personal life. Michael has often said in interviews that celebrities he has met nearly always have one th
ing in common, something that has enabled them to reach the peaks of their respective professions. It isn’t some special quality, or a gift that has been bestowed upon them; it’s that they all have something missing. They’ve all had to overcome something or prove something or plug a gap in their lives, and that has given them the sense of purpose that enabled them to achieve their goals.

  It was exactly the same for George Michael. Ask different people about him and you get different answers. But take enough angles and snapshots and you get more than just a pile of fragments, a million unconnected facts. You can see the whole picture of George Michael. Here is his story.

  PART ONE

  •

  1963–1986

  ONE

  IMMIGRANT

  1963–1975

  im•mi•grant

  a person who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence.

  an organism found in a new habitat.

  ‘My name is Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. To the outside world I am, and always will be, known as something else. But it’s not my name.’

  George Michael

  George Michael is an English pop icon. He could not have been born in a better place or at a better time to achieve his future goals, though for much of his early life he probably didn’t realise this fact. Ten years later and Wham! would never have been given the chance to develop and build their success; ten years earlier and he would have been swamped by prog rock or punk. As it was, the drab negativity of the late 1970s meant that a bright young group with a positive attitude would be likely to find a massive following, especially if they had the looks, and the tunes, to match.

  It’s been said before that the past is a foreign country. When looking back at the England of 1963 you see a place almost totally unrecognisable from the England of today. The ethnic make-up, social and political causes and international relations were all very different, and yet in some ways strangely familiar. Liverpool dominated the pop charts: in mid-June the Beatles were number one with ‘From Me To You’, closely followed by Gerry and the Pacemakers (‘I Like It’) at number two, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’) at number three and Billy Fury (‘When Will You Say I Love You’) at number four. American president John F. Kennedy was in West Berlin, where on 26 June he made his famous ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech. Back in the UK Harold Macmillan’s government was trying to contain the Profumo scandal.