He gave £15k to IVF couple he saw on Deal or No Deal
GEORGE Michael may have left half his vast personal fortune to charity, friends said yesterday as extraordinary stories of his generosity emerged.
Charities revealed that the singer had donated millions during his lifetime to causes including Childline, cancer support and HIV and Aids awareness.
It also emerged that he volunteered at a homelessness shelter, where he begged others to keep his involvement a secret.
And he was so moved by one couple’s struggle to fund IVF fertility treatment that he gave them £15,000. Other acts included a £5,000 tip for a cash-strapped waitress.
There were also claims that Michael gave a £25,000 cheque to a woman he saw sobbing in a cafe.
The star kept aside tickets for NHS staff at his concerts and once arranged a free concert for nurses in gratitude for the care they had given his mother. When his mother Lesley died from cancer in 1997 he paid tribute to her ‘great compassion’, adding: ‘She felt much as I do, that we were living in a world that was being gradually drained of that.’
The presenter of quiz show Pointless, Richard Osman, revealed that Michael heard of the IVF couple’s ordeal on Noel Edmonds’s Deal Or No Deal. He tweeted: ‘A woman on Deal Or No Deal told us she needed £15k for IVF treatment. George Michael secretly phoned the next day and gave her the £15k.’
And regarding the generous tip, author and journalist Sali Hughes posted: ‘I wrote in a piece ages ago about a celeb I’d worked with tipping a barmaid £5k because she was a student nurse in debt. Was
George Michael.’ Meanwhile actress Emilyne Mondo revealed: ‘George Michael worked anonymously at a homeless shelter I was volunteering at. I’ve never told anyone, he asked we didn’t. That’s who he was.’
Comedian David Walliams told how the singer gave £50,000 to Sport Relief when he swam the English Channel in 2006.
Childline founder Dame Esther Rantzen said he had privately donated millions to the child abuse charity. She said he had given the royalties from his 1996 number one single Jesus To A Child to the charity.
Dame Esther said: ‘For years now he has been the most extraordinarily generous philanthropist, giving money to Childline, but he was determined not to make his generosity public... I think all of us have memories of particular Wham! songs and George Michael songs which mean a great deal to us. Certainly, for Britain’s children, George Michael meant so much more.’
The Childline founder said the charity had planned a 201 concert which would celebrate his support, as part of its 30th anniversary. Charities including the Terrence Higgins Trust benefited from royalties earned by his 1991 duet with Sir Elton John, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me. He was an ambassador for Macmillan Cancer Support and among the stars involved in the original Band Aid song Do They Know It’s Christmas? which raised more than £19million for famine relief.
Michael’s personal wealth was estimated at around £125million and friends said they expected him to leave around £50million to charity. He was believed to have left large amounts to his family and close friends, understood to include former partner Kenny Goss, and Fadi Fawaz.
He founded the Goss-Michael Foundation with art dealer Mr Goss in 200 to showcase the work of British artists including Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst in the US. Michael also bought the piano on which John Lennon composed the hit Imagine, so it could be ‘seen by the people’.
He paid £1.6 million for the upright Steinway at a memorabilia auction in 2000 and later announced it would be given to the Beatles Story museum in Liverpool.