George Michael

George Michael died at home on Christmas morning and the world gasped. Everyone has a favourite song written by him, either with Wham! or as an all-conquering solo artist. Adrian Deevoy remembers the highly intelligent, emotionally deep and hilarious man he interviewed several times in his pomp.

- Adrian Deevoy

The solitary sympathy card on the mantelpiece dominated the front room, just as the death of his boyfriend had come to overshadow George Michael’s life.

He had recently recorded Older, his dark masterpiece, and several of the songs, most poignantly Jesus To A Child and You Have Been Loved, addressed the passing of Anselmo Feleppa, his first great love.

“It was the most enlightening experience I’ve ever had,” George Michael marvelled, setting down two mugs of tea on his kitchen counter, thoughtfully sharing some taramasalata on toast.

“The minute someone you really love is irretrievably lost you understand life in a different way, your perspective changes. You understand how short life is, how incredibly painful it can be. But once you’ve seen the worst of things, then you can see the best of things.”

He was in a surprisingly positive mood. It was our third long and winding interview at his London home, since he’d put the shuttlecocked high jinks of Wham! behind him and become a serious, chin-stroking solo artist.

In keeping with the obsessive detail he applied to all aspects of his career, he would grant exclusive interviews to announce that he would no longer be granting interviews. And, for such lofty pronouncements throughout the busy ’90s, I was his man. 

He loved to chat. For a reclusive fellow, given to intense bouts of introspection and an almost Rastafarian fondness for marijuana, he could talk the balls off a buffalo.