Closer looks back at public figures who have had tragic fates. Marie-France Pisier, Freddie Mercury, George Michael… Rediscover their stories of tumultuous lives in our podcast Les destins shattered.
On June 25, 1963, in the great suburbs of London, Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou was born. This baby of Greek Cypriot origin is doomed to an incredible destiny: under the pseudonym of George Michael, he will sell more than 100 million records and will receive numerous prizes. But no one can yet guess this success to come… Nor its brutal end.
Very early, the young Georgios is passionate about music. At 16, he also set up a ska group with classmates: The Executive. They record together some models which they present to record companies without success. The adventure is cute but ends abruptly: one of the members of the group dies and another temporarily leaves the United Kingdom. If this group breaks up, the desire to make a living from music is too strong for Georgios. At 18, he is now a DJ and with one of his old comrades, Andrew Ridgeley, he continues to write songs.
We are in 1982 when the duo presents their compositions to a label which hires them under their group name, Wham!. The following year, their first album was released and Georgios Panayiotou changed his name to George Michael. For now, their success is moderate and remains national. But when two years later George wrote Wake me Up Before You Go-Go, the whole planet discovers them and dances on their tube. Wham! In 1985, it even became the first Western group to perform in communist China.
Already at the top with Wham!, George Michael begins to mature a desire for independence. After only 5 years of existence, the group ends up breaking up after a farewell concert in London bringing together no less than 72,000 spectators. In 1987, the singer released his solo album Faith, and the success was international. George Michael is very popular… But his relationship to fame is changing. He seems tired of being recognized everywhere he goes and decides in the early 90s to no longer promote his albums. He only wants to be recognized for his music.
George Michael: what did his first companion die of?
Fortunately, in the midst of his doubts, he finds love. It happened in 1991, during his tour in Rio: George fell under the spell of a Brazilian, Anselmo Feleppa. The latter becomes his companion, but the romance, as passionate as it is, is stopped by illness. Barely two years after starting their romance, Anselmo dies of complications from AIDS. George is devastated. When he begins to recover from this drama, his mother dies of cancer. It’s 1997, and George Michael is sinking into depression. He stops promoting his album and does not even come to receive an award which was to be awarded to him by Elton John. He seems to be disappearing from the media.
And then, in 1998, he finds himself involuntarily on the front of the stage by being arrested in a park for indecent exposure, while he is flirting in a public toilet with a man who turns out to be a policeman. In interviews, the journalists ask him bluntly to account for his sexual orientation.
George Michael finally emerges from albums with fluctuating success, and in 2004 he announced that he wanted to share his music for free on the Internet. He feels he no longer needs money from the public. He is still very popular, but in 2010, a new incident taints his reputation in the media: victim of a car accident, he is accused of having driven under the influence of drugs. Despite his problems with the law, he decided to organize a tour with a symphony orchestra during the same period… But on November 21, 2011, he is found to have severe pneumonia. The tour is canceled and the singer finds himself in a coma. He gets out of it and resumes his tour where he left off. But George Michael is weakened.
At the end of 2016, while working on a new album, he was found dead at his home. The autopsy will conclude on a natural death.