Thank you, but George’s shrine must go

THE family of George Michael have asked his fans to stop leaving tributes at a makeshift shrine outside his Highgate home in London for the sake of the peaceful, well-to-do neighbourhood.

The singer’s relatives have promised to refurbish the park and lay new turf once the shrine has gone.

Sisters Yioda and Melanie Panayiotou and his father, Jack, made the request online, referring to him affectionately as “Yog.” They wrote: “We’ve been touched by your tributes celebrating and remembering Yog, reminding us how very much he is missed and loved. However, we feel we can’t expect our Highgate and Goring neighbours to continue to accept as normality the memorials so personal to you.”

Campaigners wanted a life-size statue of the singer, who died on Christmas Day in 2016, outside the property, but the family quietly declined as they thought George would have found the gesture “embarrassing.”

The makeshift shrine to George Michael has become untidy, with wilting flowers and turf that has turned to mud. The family has asked that it be dismantled