The troubled life of a pop star who did so much to help others
DECEMBER 25, 2016
He was one half of the definitive 1980s pop duo, a talented singer and songwriter who became a superstar.
But on December 25, 2016, the music world was shocked by the death of George michael, at the age of just 53.
Now, some seven years after he passed, his classic hit Last Christmas has at last taken top spot in the festive charts.
Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou on June 25, 1963 in Middlesex, to a GreekCypriot father and English mother, and formed the pop duo Wham! with school friend Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. The duo’ s second album, Make It Big, released in 1984, was a worldwide pop smash. Associated with the Mtv-driven second British invasion of the US, the singles from the album– Wake me up before you Go-go, Everything She Wants and Careless Whisper – all topped the US Billboard Hot 100.
Wham! broke up in 1986, allowing Michael to launch an even more successful solo career.
He achieved 13 No. 1 songs on the uk singles Chart and 10 on the us Billboard Hot 100. Michael won numerous music awards, including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards ,12 billboard music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards.
His personal life, drug use, and legal troubles made headlines following an arrest for public lewdness in 1998 and multiple drug-related offences.
Michael was an active LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser. Michael struggled with substance abuse for many years. He was arrested for drug-related offences in 2006, 2008 and 2010. In 2007, on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island discs, michael said that his cannabis use was a problem; he wished he could smoke less of it and was constantly trying to do so. In December 2009, in an interview with the Guardian, Michael explained he had cut back on cannabis and was smoking only “seven or eight” spliffs per day instead of the 25 per day he had formerly smoked. Michael also abused sleeping pills.
On October 26, 2011, Michael cancelled a performance at the royal Albert Hall in London due to a viral infection.
The following month, Vienna General Hospital admitted Michael after he complained of chest pains while at a hotel two hours before his performance at a venue there.
Michael sustained a head injury in 2013 when he fell from his moving car on the M1 motorway, near St Albans in Hertfordshire, and was airlifted to hospital
Just three years later, on Christmas day, he died at his home as a result of heart and liver disease.
Following his death, various charities revealed that Michael had privately supported them for many years.
Those charities included Childline – to whom he had donated millions – the Terrence Higgins Trust, and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Michael also donated to individuals: he reportedly called the production team of the quiz show deal or No deal after a contest ant had revealed that she needed £15,000 to fund IVF treatment and anonymously paid for the treatment. In 2017, another woman came forward and revealed he had anonymously paid for her IVF treatment after seeing her talk about her problems conceiving on an episode of This Morning in 2010.
The woman gave birth to a girl in 2012.