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On Christmas Day, 2016, we heard with shock and disbelief...
...that our dear friend, George Michael, had passed away.
Only days before, he was putting the finishing touches
to the film you're about to see.
This is George's film, Freedom, and it's his final work.
♪ Looking for some education
♪ Make my way into the night
♪ All that bullshit Conversation
♪ Baby, can't you read The signs
♪ I won't bore you With the details, baby
♪ I don't even wanna waste Your time
♪ Let's just say that maybe
♪ You could help me Ease my mind
♪ I ain't Mr. Right
♪ But if you're looking for
♪ Fast love
♪ If that's love In your eyes
♪ It's more than enough
♪ Had some bad love
♪ So, fast love is all that I've got
♪ On my mind♪
[POP MUSIC PLAYING]
♪ I can give you All the loving That your heart
♪ Desires♪
NARRATOR: In 1988, George Michael became
the biggest selling artist in the world.
This is the story of just how fame and tragedy
intervened to change his life forever.
GEORGE MICHAEL: I was massively unhappy and lonely.
I remember standing there with a tear in my eye, thinking,
"I really don't know if I'll ever do this again."
And it changed everything from that day to this.
I was single, I hadn't come out.
If I could have the self-awareness and the strength to walk away,
I could change my life.
I felt that stepping back would save me
from somehow screwing up my career.
MICHAEL: Uh...
Yeah, waiting please.
MAN: We got them.
WOMAN 1: I first became aware of George Michael's music
when I was hardly like... I was definitely a little girl.
WOMAN 2: I think his music was really...
It's just there in your psyche.
I just think it's not even taken for granted.
It's just there in the ether.
♪ There ain't no point In moving on
♪ 'Till you've got somewhere To go
♪ And the road that I have Walked upon
♪ Well, it filled my pockets
♪ And emptied out my soul♪
WOMAN 2: He's got a voice like an angel.
There are certain songs that you could ask George just to sing,
and it would make people cry, just the resonance of his voice.
♪ And some of them Are about you♪
MAN 1: It comes from someone who has felt pain,
and it comes from someone who has a deep talent.
♪ Now I know there's no way I can right those wrongs
♪ Believe me I would not lie
MAN 2: George is in the category of many of us
who had been blessed with the gift of music.
♪ But you once said There's a way back
♪ For every man
♪ So, here I am
WOMAN: There's no voice like his on the radio.
♪ Oh, don't people change?
♪ Here I am
♪ Is it too late To try again?
♪ Here I am♪
I've genuinely believed that there's something very odd about people in my position.
But the central belief that my musical journey
would be of my own making has been the thing that's informed
almost every decision I've ever made in terms of my career.
I have a musical ability which was...
powered as a young, as a teenager, it was powered by this desperate ambition
to be famous and to be loved and respected, whatever.
And all I wanted at that time was success.
♪ I'm sorry If I smoked your plan♪
MICHAEL: I had no master plan, I didn't know if I was gonna be a singer or anything.
But, at school, I met Andrew, and we formed this Ska band called The Executive,
and we were terrible basically.
But Andrew and I had already developed a knack
for writing these catchy little songs,
and we got together a couple of tracks.
One was called "Careless Whisper" and one was called "Wham Rap!"
♪ You got soul on the dole?
♪ You're gonna have a good time Down on the line♪
The '80s was probably one of the most depressing, sort of, demoralizing times
that we've ever had for young people in British history,
because the recession, because of everything, because of mass unemployment.
So, I think music, then, was probably really, really important.
In terrible depression, you have the people that
come out and say, "This is terrible. This is terrible depression."
♪ This town Town
♪ Is comin' like a ghost town♪
And then you have the escapists... things that go, "Let's party."
♪ Young Guns having some fun
♪ Crazy ladies keep 'em On the run
♪ Wise guys realize
♪ There's danger In emotional ties
♪ See me, single and free
♪ No tears, no fears, What I want to be
♪ One, two, Take a look at you
♪ Death by matrimony♪
The day after First of the Pops,
I was just convinced that everyone would recognize me.
You know, I was walking down the street like...
"Watch TV last night?"
And I think it took about three days
before someone came up and asked me for my autograph,
and I was absolutely shattered that it took that long.
♪ A married man You're out of your head
♪ Sleepless nights On an H.P. bed
♪ A daddy by the time You're 21
♪ If you're happy with a nappy Then you're in for fun
RICKY GERVAIS: It wasn't all sugary. He was singing about
being on the dole and having kids.
And, you know, there was a bit of social commentary there,
and he was embracing this newfangled thing called rap,
you know, dressed like someone from West Side Story.
We should have known then.
Then, "Club Tropicana" taught us, "Don't worry, you can sun tan."
He predicted global warming way before its time.
♪ Club Tropicana Drinks are free
I mean, I can't get the little white shorts out of my head.
♪ Call me good
♪ Call me bad
♪ Call me anything You want...♪
I'll be very honest. I was a Culture Club fan.
And we used to throw eggs at the Wham! fans.
They were massive, weren't they? George Michael, and it was like...
They were just fucking everywhere, weren't they?
♪ Baby, I'm your man♪
Anyone of my generation, you really can't remember the first time
you heard about George Michael if you grew up in the UK
because he's just part of the fabric of it.
So, there is a time of one which was like a lot of fun.
I was going to club like ... etcetera.
And we'd have a lot of fun and we loved it.
It was truly representing the time, you know?
♪ Oh yeah♪
I'm sure I could, me older brother...
I'm sure he had a bit of a Wham! moment, you know what I mean?
♪ Somebody told me
♪ Boy, everything she wants Is everything she sees♪
GERVAIS: And I already felt I was too old to like them.
I felt a bit ashamed that I was liking this teen band,
but they were great. They had something else.
They had a lot more.
♪ And now you tell me that You're having my baby
♪ I'll tell you that I'm happy If you want me to
♪ But one step further...♪
MICHAEL: Wham! itself was an absolute joy.
It was as joyous as it sounded.
They say youth is wasted on the young.
My God, what a wonderful joyride for two 18-year-olds.
♪ Wake me up before you go-go♪
MICHAEL: There was a humor about Wham! that no one ever gave us credit for.
We were so taking the piss out of ourselves half the time.
How can the country be in love with these two idiots?
I knew how to make these records and how to make them jump out of the radio.
And the idea that just because I was wearing ridiculous shorts
and curtain rings in my ears would actually stop people from noticing that.
When I look back, I still think it's kind of stunning.
I mean, everything happened kind of incrementally for us.
But there was never a point where I thought,
"My God, I'm more famous than I expected to be,"
because I was so busy thinking about trying to get to the next level.
But, I always believed, deep down,
that once I had my foot in the door, no one was gonna get me out.
♪ Yeah, yeah
♪ I'm like a maniac At the end of the day
♪ I'm like a doggie Barking at your door...♪
It's so hard to remember the day of the final, because it went so perfectly.
It was like a dream, really.
I know that there was this overwhelming feeling of pride,
and also a horrible awareness that meant a kind of end for Andrew and I.
But on that final day, I remember us hugging each other
and knowing that there was something incredibly sad going on
at the same time that we were celebrating, you know.
By the end of it,
I had no doubt that I could become an international solo success.
And as though there's always been this red line,
I see it like a red line which goes through everything.
Like a staircase to whatever you're about to do next.
And I could feel that at the final concert.
I already had one foot in my solo career.
Okay.
CROWD: [CHANTING] We want more! We want more!
That's enough of that.
I'm not ever going to be a fan of a boy band, right?
It's not going to happen.
When he went solo, the whole thing went up ten notches.
♪ Time can never mend
♪ The careless whispers Of a good friend♪
I think he was the first one that was definitely an obvious teen band
to then go on to be a serious singer, songwriter and take over the world.
♪ There's things that you guess And things that you know♪
GERVAIS: It's still very rare for an act like that to go to America.
The '80s just spawned this handful of massive celebrities
that were constantly battling the charts.
♪ That's all I wanted
♪ Something special, Something sacred
♪ In your eyes
♪ For just one moment...♪
MICHAEL: There was really, Prince, Madonna, Jackson, and myself.
And I just didn't feel who I was, was bright enough,
or kind of vivid enough to compete, because they were different people.
They seemed to be much more larger than life.
If I was looking for happiness, this was the wrong road.
But I don't think there's any way I could have controlled my ego enough
to have stopped me exploring the possibility of being
the biggest selling artist in the world.
So, I went with full gusto into creating a new character.
You know, one that I thought would be resilient enough
to stand up there next to Madonna and Jackson and Prince.
Ladies and gentlemen,
George Michael.
MICHAEL: And I guess I did that pretty effectively,
alongside what was a very, very commercial record.
♪ Well, I guess It would be nice
♪ If I could touch your body
♪ I know not everybody Has got a body like you♪
The attitude, he was creating, like, a personage as we call it, you know.
He was very charismatic.
Every video was a very strong impact.
♪ Oh, but I need some time off From that...♪
GAULTIER: He is, like, coming in jeans, you know, and like tight and sexy.
And like a rock image and moving with the hips like that.
You know, a little like Wham! before, you know.
A little like that, but more, like, sexy.
Check this out then, modern day Elvis.
♪ Faith, I gotta have...♪
I liked the spirit of "Faith", because you do have to have it.
I remember his "Baby, ow!"
♪ Baby♪
Yeah, I remember that.
MICHAEL: I didn't realize that people would look at the "Faith" image
and go, "Fuck, that's cool."
♪ I'm givin' you the blues♪
I was really, really overwhelmed by the size of things, I suppose.
I lived in fucking sunglasses.
I couldn't make eye contact with people. It was bizarre.
♪ And another who tied me Down to loverboy rules♪
I still suffered terribly with insecurity about my looks.
It goes back to a family background
where conceit of any kind was considered an absolute sin.
So, no one was ever praised about the way they looked.
♪ Well, I need someone To hold me
♪ But I'll wait For somethin' more
♪ Yes, I gotta have faith♪
"Faith" was number one in Britain for one week.
But in America, number one for 12 weeks.
And then on top of that, he had four number one singles,
a number two single and a number five single.
In 1988, he was the biggest pop star in the world.
♪ Because I gotta have faith Faith, faith
♪ I gotta have faith, Faith, faith♪
All I remember is "Faith" being played 50 times a day on MTV.
You had to be in heavy rotation on whatever pop station you were on.
Duran Duran, David Bowie, Eurythmics was played on MTV, like, constantly,
played on all the video stations.
You really didn't hear any of those artists,
but you heard George Michael, on some of the urban stations, right after Luther Vandross.
His music broke through to everybody.
MICHAEL: In America, radio play for me
was substantial on a lot of R&B stations.
He uniquely achieved recognition on the R&B soul charts
that very few white performers ever got.
He obviously had studied American soul music,
and felt a connection and a kindred spirit.
We were introduced to each other,
so, we're going back now to about '86 maybe.
And it was his thought that he wanted to
do a duet with one of my artists.
♪ Like a warrior that fights
♪ And wins the battle♪
MICHAEL: When I was about six or seven,
I had a wind-up gramophone that my mum gave me.
I had two Supreme singles,
one wasStop! In the Name of Love and one wasBaby Love.
And I hadDelilah by Tom Jones, which is funny,
because I kind of ended up somewhere between
the Supremes and Tom Jones when you think about it.
♪ I know you did Kept my faith
♪ When the river was deep
♪ I didn't falter
♪ When the mountain was high
♪ I still believed
♪ When the valley was low
♪ It didn't stop me
♪ No
♪ I knew you were waiting
♪ Some place♪ Somewhere
♪ Somehow♪ For me♪
MICHAEL: It was great that I had my own voice
and I had worked with Aretha Franklin,
and everything had gone so well.
From an artistic point of view, it just got better and better.
George Michael's voice, to me, was always very soulful,
and it was very warm, and sultry and urgent.
He has soul. Period.
Soul is an expression of the soul, of the heart.
MICHAEL: It was good to be number one in the black charts.
It was an amazing thing to see, obviously.
England has a great love affair with
American black music and R&B and a great tradition of
our own interpretation of soul music and that thing, but he's...
He's kind of up there, at the pinnacle of it.
♪ But remember this Every other kiss
♪ That you ever give Long as we both live
♪ When you need the hand Of another man
♪ One you really can Surrender with
♪ I will wait for you Like I always do
♪ There's something there That can't compare
♪ With any other♪
MICHAEL: Making that album, I'm sure I was incredibly proud of it,
but I don't think I ever imagined it would be bigger than Wham!.
RODGERS: I imagine that the pressure on someone like George
must have been insane,
because he was doing stuff that was just so phenomenal.
After you have that kind of success,
like, what do you go home at night and go, "Now, what do I do?"
MICHAEL: I do remember it being shocking to me
that I could become more successful than I had been with Wham!
I suppose the whole exercise was an effort to raise my profile
to kind of define what my solo image was going to be.
But I really had no idea how effective it was going to be,
especially in America.
And I had no idea what it was like to be that big in America.
WOMAN: George is really, really private
and I think, when he was young, with all that fame,
I just think it came too fast, and it wasn't actually what he was expecting.
I was probably most out of control,
in any kind of sense of that, during the whole "Faith" thing.
Being caught in the eye of this storm is catastrophic.
It's just 24/7 full time in your face.
I mean, the wind burn is terrible.
MICHAEL: I can't really explain how overwhelming
that kind of hysteria can be if there's only one person to absorb it.
When I was with Andrew, it was so easy to keep one foot in my old life,
the life that I had known with him before we'd been famous.
It was so easy to keep each other grounded,
to take the piss out of each other,
and be able to look at each other
and talk about the madness that was going on around us.
But when you can't do that, suddenly, it is scary.
I don't know many 24-year-olds who would not have, at least subconsciously,
found that frightening enough to self-destruct.
PAUL RUSSELL: Now the problem is, the record came out
everywhere in the world, pretty much at the same time.
So, everybody wanted a piece of George to help promote the album.
Enormous pressure.
Huge, huge pressure.
MICHAEL: Ten months of that was enough to really push me to the edge.
And I was terribly lonely, you know?
Me and my red line were very lonely.
And the only good part of my day was playing live.
When I sang "Careless Whisper"...
I can't remember which was the last gig on the American tour,
which would have been the end of the whole tour.
I think it was Pensacola.
But when I sang "Careless Whisper" that night,
I remember standing there, with a tear in my eye, thinking,
"I really don't know if I'll ever do this again."
♪ Time can never mend
♪ The careless whispers
♪ Of a good friend
♪ To the heart and mind
♪ Ignorance is kind
♪ There's no comfort In the truth
♪ Pain is all♪
I was intelligent enough to know I should not be trying to catch up with
Michael Jackson or Madonna or whatever,
which was absolutely what I was intent on doing.
I felt that tired and exhausted at being the center of that much attention.
I suppose the way my lack of mental balance showed itself
was that I actually really began to hide away when I got home.
And I did almost nothing for a year,
but try and reestablish some idea of the real life.
Music was my very controlling lover.
I had millions of lovers that I never saw
other than in the sense of live work.
But I still deserved one.
Just one of them for me.
And I knew that the only way I was gonna find that one person,
that lover, was to jump off of the merry-go-round
just for long enough to catch my breath,
and letting my heart rule my head, rather than, you know, the red line.
The red line that goes up, up, up, up, up, up.
Sometimes you feel like he's...
He's got, like, a layer or two of skin missing.
Like he just, like he bruises easier,
and because of that, he can write these amazing songs.
I never wanted to be someone else.
I wanted to be a star, and I wanted people to love me and recognize me in the street.
As a child, that's what I wanted,
but I never really wanted to be someone else.
I believe I am a writer much more than I am anything else.
And I want to leave songs.
I believe I can leave songs that will be, will mean something to other generations.
This award is for favorite soul and R&B album.
And the winner is, George Michael.
I've been a lover of soul music since I was a kid.
And I'd just like to thank everybody who has helped me this year.
I'd like to thank Black Radio, I'd like to thank everyone at CBS Records,
in the R&B department.
And I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me.
I can't believe it. Thank you very much.
I won these two awards that were traditionally received by black artists.
And I think there was a perception that it had gone too far.
The black male artist works very hard to get his due,
and Bobby Brown had across the board play.
And he could compete in the same category as George Michael competes in.
That would be a whole another thing.
I didn't ask to be given those awards,
I'm not going to pretend I wasn't happy to get them.
But I do understand what the argument that says,
"This guy is just an acceptable version of black music
for White America."
Suddenly, crossover was not hip.
And I see that point. I totally saw the point at the time.
I just felt it was sad, you know,
that white and black people recording together,
suddenly was, kind of, dancing with the enemy.
You mean George is white?
Are you serious?
Oh, my God!
And he is blind, right?
I think it had a huge effect on George,
because he'd won in this category,
he'd achieved something that was beyond his wildest dreams,
only to have the carpet pulled from under his feet.
I don't think there's any attempt to, kind of, steal black heritage
in what I'm doing.
All I think that's happening is I'm trying to make good music.
Music is not based on the color of one's skin,
or, you know, this is soul music or this is pop.
To me, those things are like, it's kind of old.
You know what I mean?
MICHAEL: I suddenly couldn't get anywhere near radio, Black Radio.
And that was the reason, really,
Listen Without Prejudice was called Listen Without Prejudice.
It was me saying, "Here's an album that has bits of gospel, you know,
bits of R&B, some very white stuff,"
and it was just trying to say, "Let me be both of these things
"without having to be one or the other."
LIAM GALLAGHER: I don't know if I bought it, stole it,
or it just, sort of like, just got delivered.
You know, I mean, sometimes you get albums like that, don't you?
You know what I mean? They're that great, they just end up in your house.
ELTON JOHN: What can I say about the sound of it?
It's very ethereal.
It has a mystery about it.
George, on this album, got everything that he had inside his gut,
onto vinyl or CD or cassette.
And thank God he did.
Well, let's have a party pop song.
[MUSIC PLAYS ON RECORD PLAYER]
It fucking won.
This song, now, it's just got such a big opening, a message, actually, I think.
JOHN: That opening, it reminds me of John Lennon.
Sliced out of one of John's solo albums.
♪ These are the days Of the open hand
♪ They will not be the last
♪ Look around now
♪ These are the days Of the beggars And the choosers♪
When I listen to George Michael's songs,
I think, not only he's tapped into his dark side
of whatever's going on in his life,
but he's tapped into the truth about who he is and what he is, and what life is.
And he wasn't afraid to share that with us.
♪ The rich declare Themselves poor
♪ And most of us Are not sure
♪ If we have too much But we'll take our chances
♪ 'Cause God's stopped Keeping score♪
When I hear that, it is right up there, you know what I mean?
And then you get into the lyrics.
The ones from the side is "The rich declare themselves poor."
I like it, 'cause it's got a bit of a dig. You know what I mean?
I mean, that's the way I take it anyway.
It's like, "You bunch of fucking cunts," you know,
"always fucking playing the poverty card."
I like that, 'cause it's got a bit of Lennon vibe.
He likes to dig people out.
There's no one before The Beatles that has done this kind of song.
♪ When there is no hope To speak of
♪ And the wounded Skies above♪
Not only, really, it's just his writing,
but it's the vocal performance, you know?
And it's always just like...
It just always feels so honest.
You just believe, kind of, every word that he sings and even ad-libs.
Even him throwing out a line is better than most people's verses.
There comes a point where you have to write something
which you haven't written before,
and which your interest in any particular topic or subject will inspire you,
and that's why, I suppose, eventually, most lyricists,
do approach wider topics than sex and love, you know?
♪ These are the days Of the empty hand
♪ Oh, you hold on To what you can
♪ And charity is a coat You wear twice a year♪
"Charity's a coat you wear twice a year."
Like, just like... There's things that
stick out to you when you're listening to, kind of,
pop music and whatever else at that age.
♪ So, maybe we should all be Praying for time
♪ To-do-do♪
But even if I'm making whatever, you know, I mean,
I'd work on his case, you know, but I am gonna assist you
'cause it's a classic. It's up there.
I'd say it could have been cut from the same cloth as Imagine.
It's got, you know, it's heartfelt,
and the words are amazing and the tune's great.
That was a bit much, isn't it?
I didn't expect to be as moved as I am.
♪ Let me tell you a secret
♪ Put it in your heart And keep it
♪ Something that I want to...♪
MICHAEL: It was my time to discover The Beatles.
And at the time, I was big into Abbey Road and Revolver,
and you know... And it's the people that you're trying to emulate,
sometimes, that can bring you up.
I made one record to show how much I loved Lennon,
I made another record to show how much I love McCartney.
I didn't even dream that McCartney would ever sing it.
And actually, when he sings it, it sounds like a Paul McCartney record.
Next week, we're gonna do some vocals, yeah?
'Cause you're ready for that.Thanks.
♪ Please let me try to
♪ I can heal the pain
♪ That you're feeling inside♪
It's most surreal moment of my career, I think, to have Paul McCartney singing
something that I wrote as a tribute to Paul McCartney.
I don't think I would have had the nerve to ask him when I wrote it.
Sounds so fucking cool.
It's cool.
♪ Won't you show me Your heart now?
♪ I'll be good to you
♪ I can make this thing true
♪ And get To your heart somehow
Yeah. Go on, love.
♪ Yeah...♪
Okay.
MICHAEL: You know, the man forgot to introduce me.
I heard the beginning of "Baby, You Can Drive My Car" start.
There's this bit of film of me going...
So, that's what I did. I just ran on
just before I was supposed to sing the chorus.
♪ But you can do something In between
♪ Baby, you can drive my car♪
I haven't done this in a long time.
[MUSIC PLAYING ON RECORD PLAYER]
See how piano-based the album is?
♪ No more lying friends
♪ Wanting tragic ends
♪ Though they do pretend
♪ They won't go when I go
I mean, he sounds like Stevie.
Love this song.
♪ All those bleeding hearts♪
I hear so much,
like, exhaustion.
Not exhaustion in him as an artist,
but exhaustion in him, you know, as a human in this world we live in.
I hear a fight.[CHUCKLES]
Sometimes, you know, like, you'd definitely hit a pure talent.
Pure talent.
You hear hope.
Brilliant.
"They Won't Go When I Go", for sure, like, that was...
That was probably my introduction even to Stevie Wonder.
The version "They Won't Go When I Go",
it brings back a lot of the memories because it's the thought
that at the end of the day, we come alone in this world,
and we will, and we will die alone.
And it's what we do in between that's going to determine
how and what we'll be remembered as and what we can think about in spirit.
So, it was great to hear him sing the song.
♪ Unclean minds Mislead the pure
♪ The innocent Will leave for sure
♪ For them There is a resting place
♪ People sinning just for fun They will never see the sun
♪ For they can never show Their faces
♪ There ain't no room For the hopeless sinner
♪ Who will take more than he Will give
♪ He will give He will give
♪ He ain't hardly gonna give♪
I'm actually crying.
So, you know,
it takes a massive amount of bravery
for George to do a song like that.
When you go into an area,
that, you know is sort of, like, sacred ground,
you're going to a place
because your heart tells you to go there.
You have a love of something and you want to live in that world.
♪ His father works some days For 14 hours
♪ And you can bet He barely makes a dollar
♪ His mother goes To scrub the floors for many
♪ And you'd best believe She hardly gets a penny
♪ Living just enough
♪ Just enough for the city♪
Reason for me doing so many Stevie Wonder
'cause I've done in over various sets.
I've done like four or five Stevie Wonder covers.
And apart from the fact, like, I consider him to be an incredible writer.
His voice, the key
that he was writing for at that time was perfectly suited to my voice.
♪ His patience's long But soon he won't have any
♪ To find a job Is like a haystack needle
♪ 'Cause where he lives They don't use colored people
♪ Living just enough Just enough For the city, yeah
♪ One more time♪
WONDER: Well, George reminds me of me as a little kid, you know?
My passion for music.
He and I doing the "Living For The City",
I remember that that was a lot of fun.
♪ Oh, no♪
Chemistry is something that you can't fake.
It's about how you relate to each other and how it connects.
MICHAEL: I'm aware of the need for persona,
and my actual persona, I'm not really prepared to give.
I'm a real homebody.
I'd much rather be taking my dog for a walk.
Or, you know, be with friends.
I feel like I don't belong out there.
Being this professional person,
going around selling his wares.
He had a much harder journey than me in a way, because if you get
fame and accolades and wealth beyond your wildest dreams
as a teenager, it usually goes wrong.
But he obviously had a wiser head on his shoulders than most.
I think a lot of young musicians now are
kind of, you know, sort of, manufactured.
And I think, for him, he didn't ever want to be like that.
And part of his reactionary way was to break away from all of that.
MICHAEL: I was still struggling with the idea of having that much attention.
And I think, like, recoiled from that
and I felt that stepping back would save me
from somehow screwing up my career.
I see, kind of, hard sell promotion as prostituting myself.
I can't help it, even if it's a complete fallacy.
That's how I see it.
I am of that generation.
He felt he needed to withdraw from the merry-go-round that is promoting and albums
and explained in a very articulate way.
That he just felt he had to withdraw from that
for the moment, for his own sanity,
that we would probably get more albums out of him
if we just allowed him to back off.
That was quite a bomb shell, I suppose, for us to have to deal with.
The fact that he didn't do any promotion of it,
it's begs, you know, it's quite astonishing.
[MUSIC PLAYING ON RECORD]
JOHN: What's coming up now is one of the great intros.
[BEAT-BOXING]
And I was, not me on piano either,
which is... I always hated him for that.
♪ I won't let you down
♪ I will not give you up
♪ Gotta have some faith In the sound
♪ It's the one good thing That I've got
♪ I won't let you down
♪ So, please Don't give me up
♪ Because I would really, Really love to stick around
♪ Oh, yeah♪
"Freedom! '90" is, kind of, like this
funk groove masterpiece that just comes in a like, track two.
You're striving to make something
every time you go in the studio,
half as good as a record like that.
It's the Mona Lisa.
♪ Heaven knows I was just a young boy
♪ Didn't know what I wanted to be♪
Big change made, he's not there.
He doesn't appear.
Beautiful girls are there.
The top, top, top, top, top model.
♪ And I guess It was enough...♪
MICHAEL: If you're gonna say to your record company,
"Look, I'm not gonna be in this video."
I think that's fairly good consolation prize. Really.
Five absolutely gorgeous supermodels
that people still want to look at today.
♪ Rock and roll TV Rock and roll TV♪
It changed the whole face of how videos were done.
The video said everything.
It was genius, and it was a revolutionary thing.
George had raised the bar to a whole new level.
ALT: It felt like a big statement.
It was really well done.
It could have been a disaster.
CRAWFORD: It was a specific group of women that George wanted,
that had just been on the cover of BritishVogue
that was shot by Peter Lindbergh.
It was, like, "He wants you five.
"And it has to be all of you five."
♪ Sometimes the clothes Do not make the man♪
Now in fashion, there is no supermodels like this.
This is gone.
It was like the magic moment of modeling.
I suppose that's the lasting memory
of that whole video shoot was the cost of the girls
and the fees they were charging on a daily basis.
That was pretty groundbreaking.
George pitched it to me in L.A. and his exact words were...
"You're the leader of the gang, and unless you say yes, the rest of the girls won't."
His people talked to my people.
Yeah, you know how it went back then.
I was like, "Well, is Christy doing it?"
♪ Freedom
♪ You've got to give What you take♪
CHRISTY TURLINGTON: My scene where I'm sort of crawling on the ground
and you just see my eyes.
People think I know, that slow, so, like, sexy and mysterious
is just really, I didn't know the words.
LINDA EVANGELISTA: I prepared in the trailer with George.
He showed me how to hit the notes and it's hard to lip sync.
CRAWFORD: David Fincher was directing it.
And even though the shot ended up looking like the steamy bath scene,
there was no water in the tub.
I was freezing cold.
I was covered in glycerin to make my skin shiny.
And I, kind of, thought, "I hope Fincher knows what he's doing."
TURLINGTON: I remember David and George working closely together.
He was, you know, right there, looking through the lens at time.
Everything suited each girl.
So, I think it was just strong and we were all so different.
It's such a fun song.
When you listen to the words and kind of a statement, it has much more meaning,
and I feel, like, that whole time
George Michael was about him saying,
"Enough, like, you guys tried to prepackage me and sell me
"in a way that wasn't authentic."
♪ ...true somehow
♪ All we have to see
♪ Is that I don't belong To you
♪And you don't belong To me, yeah, yeah
♪ Freedom I won't let you down
♪ Freedom I will not give you up♪
You can see the biker jacket, which is burning like the fire, so, it's like symbolic.
RONSON: I got the impression he's saying, like, that chapter's closed
and I'm done being public figure pop star.
MICHAEL: The burning of the jacket, the exploding guitar,
the exploding jukebox was me just saying I'm sick of this.
I really can't cope with it.
♪ Freedom
♪ You got to give What you take
Not only were we not going to get him appearing in promotional videos,
but we weren't going to get his image on the album sleeve.
We won't get to get his name on the album sleeve.
Would I have chosen the album sleeve that wasn't the beach shot
taken from 1940 or whenever it was? Yeah.
Would I have liked his name on that?
Yeah, of course I would.
A lot of people are just pimping themselves out 24/7.
You know what I mean?
There's a mystique about George Michael.
♪ But today the way I play the game
♪ Has got to change, Oh, yeah
♪ Now I'm gonna get Myself happy♪
JOHN: Making records, it's fun.
And then you have to talk about it, which is not fun.
Yeah, I thought it was bonkers.
But then it all makes sense, doesn't it?
MICHAEL: When I spoke to theLos Angeles Times
about stepping back from promotion,
Frank Sinatra wrote me an open letter
that just said, you know, "Get over it.
"Be glad that God gave you a gift and get out there and use it."
I don't think he wrote the letter.
I actually believed that was the work of a publicist,
not the work of a genius.
What a wonderful letter.
Here, probably, the greatest male singer of all time is saying,
"Embrace your talent, enjoy the success.
Don't be threatened by it."
MICHAEL: Now, even though he's the greatest singer
that ever walked the planet, as far as I'm concerned,
I wasn't taking any advice from Frank Sinatra.
You can't put a gun to any creative person's head and say,
"Create, write, promote, market, whatever."
You just have to go with it.
That's what we had to do.
I had spent six or seven years of my life,
working, working, working, writing, music, music, music.
And then I had this desire to escape.
The basis for me going to do the shows in Rio was I wanted to see Brazil.
And I think I made it conditional that 30 of my friends
would be flown out to Brazil.
We had our own private island.
Absolutely beautiful.
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]
I'm actually wearing today...
Some sweat pants. They're very tight at the bottoms.
This is because I don't want to drop raw sewage over the city of Rio.
♪ So, you want to be free
♪ To live your life The way you wanna be
♪ Will you give if we cry?
♪ Will we live Or will we die?
♪ Tainted hearts Heal with time
♪ Shoot bad love so we can
MICHAEL: In the front of this 160,000 people,
there was this guy over on the right hand side of the stage
that has fixed me with this look and he was so cute.
I was so distracted by him.
But I stayed away from that end of the stage for a while.
Because otherwise, I thought I was gonna get really distracted
and forget the words or something. You know?
♪ Is there still a part of you That wants to live?
♪ Solitary sister
♪ Is there still a part of you That wants to give?
The moment I looked at him, I got the feeling
that told me I was going to know him very well
and that he was going to be a part of my life.
♪ Is there still a part of you That wants to give?♪
Anselmo was the first time I think I really loved someone selflessly.
It was, kind of, immediate.
Everybody, with the exception of my family,
was introduced to him very, very quickly
because I felt immediately that everything had changed.
DAVID AUSTIN: All our friends knew, of course.
I remember seeing him and just thinking
how I just was feeling so happy for him.
The two of them met and changed George's life.
It's very hard to be proud of your own sexuality
when it hasn't brought you any joy.
Once it is associated with joy and love,
it's easy to be proud of who you are.
The first time you actually believe somebody loves you,
that's a wonderful moment in your life,
and it was a wonderful six months.
What a poser.
He was just very full of energy, very loving.
I was happier than I'd ever been in my entire life.
AUSTIN: He didn't care who saw him with Anselmo.
He'd found something.
He'd found what he was looking for, you know?
MICHAEL: By the time I met Anselmo,
I had made the decision to jump off the merry-go-round,
and I was already in the early stages of my confrontation with Sony.
Recording an album, and then saying,
"I'm not going to promote it or I'm not going to market it.
I'm not going to participate,"
that's a serious detriment to an album.
I think we had some personality issues
between people in the UK and people in the American company.
Why wasn't this "Faith Part Two"?
We wanted all those nice pop songs.
What do you mean he's not going to promote?
We're not going to have his image on it?
It's like saying, "I'll do a movie but I...
I won't do one premiere.
I won't do any interviews for the movie."
You know, you say, "Oh, my God."
TRACEY EMIN: The moment someone says to a musician or to an artist,
make more of them or do more of that, it kills you.
And I think probably for someone like George, especially,
at certain times in his career, he must've felt quite trapped.
In England, they made an effort, and Listen Without Prejudice outsold Faith.
And lots of places it outsold Faith,
because I think it was actually a better album.
But it wasn't about that.
It was about the total and utter lack of respect
that the minute somebody doesn't see themselves as a commodity,
that they have the audacity to think,
"My God, I am actually creating something
and I must keep myself sane in order to do that."
The minute somebody does that, they're over.
We tried very, very hard
to get the American executives to come over
and listen to why George felt the way that he did
from George, 'cause there was no-one better to put that forward
than George Michael telling them, as he had told us.
The reasons how he really felt deep down.
But they wouldn't come.
MICHAEL: There were executives that came to London in 1989
and we played them the record.
I explained to them that Faith had taken me to the edge of madness,
that I wanted to be a long-term player in this business.
Now, any logical CEO, I think, would have thought,
"Okay, he's gonna do this.
He'll get it out of his system and he'll get back on board."
George is very stubborn.
He's incredibly one of the most stubborn people I've ever met.
But he was right to be stubborn on this occasion,
and I'm sure the record company recoiled in horror.
MICHAEL: It was very much a clash of cultures, really.
In America, there was definitely a door that shut.
♪ But losing everything
♪ Is like the sun going down On me♪
Mr. Elton John!
I managed to have a couple of really big hit records in the meantime.
There was the track with Elton,
and, of course, theRed Hot + Dance album came out.
♪ Hey, you're just Too funky for me
♪ I gotta get inside of you
♪ And I'll show you heaven, If you let me♪
EVANGELISTA: It was very difficult to make that video.
It all fell apart, not for any of George's reasons.
It just fell apart, and he saved it.
Linda, bless her heart, came back again.
We got a bit drunk.
I won't say any more about that.
It's your stupid, stupid song.
This would look great on me.
I think George definitely should wear this.
♪ If that's all right, yeah♪
So, I realized at that point that if a number one around the world
was not going to reinstate any kind of relationship with Sony,
then nothing was.
I don't want to pick a fight.
I just wanted to work with people who wanted to work with me
and who would have some respect for the fact that I was growing up.
It was deeply, deeply troubling times,
because you could see this, it's like trying to watch a train wreck in slow motion.
There is nothing you could do to stop it.
MICHAEL: Anselmo and I were in LA when
he was advised to go for his test.
He hadn't been tested for a while
and he was absolutely healthy looking,
more than healthy looking, when I first met him.
Within a month or two of meeting him,
he had a flu that he couldn't get rid of,
and some red marks that came up on his chest.
And I remember the kind of terror of...
me understanding that this was possibly
the beginning of, you know, an illness.
I remember him leaving the house and...
To this day, I remember looking at the sky and saying,
"Don't you dare do this to me."
I mean, I was 20... 27 going on 28.
But at that point in time, you think,
like, that's a lifetime to have waited to be loved.
Anselmo had the test
in Brazil.
I went home to my family for Christmas and sat at the Christmas table
not knowing whether my partner, whom the people
sitting around the table did not know about,
not knowing whether this man I was in love with was terminally ill.
And, therefore, not knowing whether I potentially was terminally ill.
That Christmas was probably the darkest,
darkest, most frightening time in my life.
I remember my publicist calling me to tell me that Freddie Mercury had died.
And he died of HIV obviously.
And I remember I was... I was crying and
I actually just thought... I mean, bless him, I was really sad
that Freddie had passed away.
But, of course, I was crying about something else entirely,
which was the fact that both my partner and possibly myself were HIV.
GERVAIS: It was an incredibly difficult period for George,
because it was something that he had to hold close to his chest.
MICHAEL: I was just absolutely devastated
to find out that he had a terminal illness.
I was just devastated.
Even by the time Freddie's tribute had been put together,
I was still sworn to secrecy.
I just wanted perfection.
Which is what I always wanted.
So, I went for five days to rehearse.
Everyone else went for an afternoon.
I went for five days.
Because it had to be perfect.
[SINGING]
Because I had to take all those years of standing in a bedroom,
with I don't think I had a hairbrush,
but I would stand and sing to the mirror.
And that child was going to take all that knowledge
all that subconscious easing in of music from that group
and sing one of Freddie Mercury's songs to the world
after his passing in front of my lover.
In my subconscious view, this was, very probably
the most important performance of my life.
♪ Somebody to love
♪ He works hard
♪ Everyday♪ Everyday
♪ I try and I try and I try
♪ But everybody wants To put me down
♪ They say I'm goin' crazy
♪ They say I got a lot Of water in my brain
♪ I got no common sense
♪ He's got Nobody left to believe
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I was so overwhelmed by the sadness of singing the songs of this man
that I absolutely worshipped as a child, who had passed away
in the same manner that my first live-in partner was going to experience.
It was just overwhelming to me.
♪ Ooh, somebody
♪ Anybody, find me somebody To love
♪ Can anybody find me
♪ Someone to love?
♪ I got no feel, I got no rhythm
♪ I just keep losing My beat
♪ You just keeping losing The beat
♪ I'm okay, I'm all right
♪ He's all right, He's all right
♪ I ain't gonna face No defeat
♪ I just gotta get out Of this prison cell
♪ Someday I'm gonna be free, Lord
I'm very proud of that performance, but Anselmo was in the crowd
and I went out there knowing I had to honor Freddie Mercury and I had to pray for Anselmo.
Wanna hear every single person.
See every single hand.
And this was the loudest prayer of my life.
♪ Somebody to love
I mean, it was the most incredible crowd I've ever seen.
Everybody knew every single word.
And there's a real, kind of, spine-tingling moment for me
where I handed over the mike to the audience, and they,
not only sang the note, but they did the kind of descending scale
that Freddy had done.
♪ Somebody to
Come on!
♪ Love
Yeah!
♪ Find me somebody To-ooh love
♪ Ooh
♪ Find me somebody To-ooh love
♪ Somebody, somebody, somebody To love
♪ Find me, find me Find me, find me, find me
♪ Ooh, somebody to love
♪ Find me somebody to love
♪ Anybody, anywhere, anybody
♪ Find me somebody to love, Love
♪ Ooh♪
It's not an accident that the performance
probably most well-known in my career was sung
to my lover who was dying,
who was the reason I had the strength to go to battle with Sony.
I saw it as, if I'm going to do nothing but love this man
and care for this man, if I could do nothing beneficial as a musician
because I cannot even think of a note,
maybe I have a chance to do something truly special
and change the standard record contract forever.
I didn't think that it would end up in court, at the time
because I really thought that sanity will prevail.
Well, I was wrong.
It didn't.
Our relationship broke down because they said,
"No, you are this kind of artist.
This is the kind of artist that we sell.
This is the kind of artist we know how to sell.
And if you don't want to sell yourself that way,
and you want to go off on this journey
and find this other audience, we're not gonna support you."
The relationship had completely disintegrated.
George flew out to New York with his publisher
and basically, it was at that meeting
that George told the head people at Sony
that he'd wanted out of the deal, wanted a divorce.
What he was basically saying is, "How can I stay with a company...
who won't support me in any way when I feel so strongly?"
We issued a writ three days later.
MICHAEL: I will never know if Sony and I would have ended up in court
had Anselmo not become ill.
I was absolutely terrified of losing him
and the prospect of watching him die of AIDS.
I was in LA and the phone rang,
and I was told that Anselmo's best friend in Brazil was on the phone.
And...
...then it all goes blurry for a long time.
He still, 23 years later, brings a tear to my eye.
He was... He was my savior.
It's still very hard for me to explain how finding a companion
at that stage in my life changed me.
And such a beautiful companion, such an amazing person.
I think, to some degree, the Sony court case
was a perfectly good place to put my anger.
I used to go and run on the treadmill everyday and play squash
and do everything I could to get rid of all of this anger and fear.
But the best place for it was court number one, really.
PRESSPERSON: George, come on, George.
MICHAEL: There was the part of my personality that could say,
"Okay, fuck this!
This can't all be bad.
I've got to do something good with this time in my life
and change the path of artists' lives."
One of Britain's most successful pop singers, George Michael,
is today asking a High Court judge to declare
his recording contract null and void.
He says the contract with Sony Music is too restrictive
and that the company takes too much of the profits.
MICHAEL: The deal that I was working from
was based upon the original deal
which I had signed with Andrew, under duress.
And it recorded a demo of "Careless Whisper", "Club Tropicana", "Wham Rap".
The head of the record company of Innervison
turns up with these contracts and we went to this greasy spoon cafe.
And he said "Look, if you don't sign this now, the deal is going away.
"You won't have finished demos to take away, you won't own them."
And we were on our own, we had nobody with us, and we signed them.
When you start a career with a ridiculous contract
where someone is paying you nothing on 12" records,
one and a half per cent on the records that you do sell,
when you start from that point,
you know from that day on not to trust the industry.
This was a worldwide, major artist saying to a record company
that the basic contract which record companies used was invalid.
RUSSELL: If you really fall out with the people
who control your professional life,
you have a right to walk away.
I think that is the right of every individual.
And the music industry takes away that right from every artist it signs.
George is very, very brave.
He's not afraid of anybody.
And he thought he was being wronged
and he went out and fought his own corner.
What we couldn't do was stand up and say, "Yeah, you're right.
"These contracts are slavery and they shouldn't be allowed, Your Honor."
We weren't going to do that!
You would have artist after artist queuing up
to take their record company into court.
MICHAEL: I can't think of one artist that supported me.
Not one.
I know of a lot of artists who sat back and waited for the result.
But that's a different thing.
ANDY STEPHENS: Artists like George Michael come along, if you're lucky,
once-in-a-lifetime.
My feelings as the court case went on were that we'd lost him.
How could you ever patch that up?
I'd never let on to George of the problems
until after he'd been in the witness box.
And I said, "It's not going well."
And, you know, you shouldn't raise your hopes at this stage.
The pop star George Michael loses his High Court battle
to break away from his record company, Sony.
In dismissing the claim, the judge, Mr. Justice Parker,
ruled that the contract was both reasonable and fair.
The 30-year-old singer had argued that the agreement
was stifling his artistic development
and he threatened never to record for Sony again if he lost.
George Michael says he'll appeal against the judgment,
which he said condemned him to "professional slavery."
Having received this judgment, I would like to reiterate the reasons why
I embarked upon these proceedings.
I have no right to resign.
In fact, there is no such thing as resignation for an artist in the music industry.
Effectively, you sign a piece of paper at the beginning of your career
and you are expected to live with that decision,
good or bad, for the rest of your professional life.
I shall obviously take full advice from my lawyers.
But the initial view is that we have very strong grounds for appeal
and we hope to have the appeal heard as quickly as possible.
Thank you very much for your time and for all the support
that I've received since this action began. Thank you.
JOURNALIST: George, will you sing for Sony again?
After the court case was finished and I'd lost
and not just lost, I lost completely.
I mean, I lost on everything.
Every count.
They then called up and, you know, kind of said, "Well, isn't...
Can't we patch things up?" kind of thing.
But I knew in reality that was like a formality.
They had to do that.
But ultimately, the whole thing was a complete waste of time.
And I regret it to this day.
Looking back 25 years on, my first thought is that I just think it's sad.
When you win a court case, you're normally out there high-fiving
and putting the drinks in.
But I don't think anyone felt, not on my team anyway, a sense of euphoria.
Certainly, there were no winners.
I mean, we won the court case, but we didn't win anything.
You've actually lost because you've lost the support of that artist.
TONY: George said in passing, "David Frost wants to do an interview with me."
And I said, "You've got to do it.
They know you're a man of principle.
Now, you've got to be a man of principle who's totally obsessed."
Well...
What happens now is that we go to appeal.
I can't see any other way around it.
I mean, of course, there is the ultimate option
that an appeal at the House of Lords, which would take forever.
It was all bluff.
I mean, they intended to take it to the Court of Appeal in the UK.
Never to the House of Lords, never to the European Court of Justice.
They can only lose by going to appeal.
Everybody was watching,
including David Geffen.
No-one was going to let a talent like that flounder out there for very long.
So, David Geffen contacts Sony and said to them,
"Listen, guys,
he's never, ever going to make another piece of music for you ever."
"You might as well let him go."
I flew to New York, had a very quick meeting there,
where basically, you know, we agreed that the contract would be sold.
I was like in seventh heaven.
TONY: Sony said, "We want this transfer fee" and
it would've bought you a top class footballer.
In fact, it most probably even bought you Lionel Messi in those days.
RUSSELL: In the end, he did whatever he did with David Geffen and Virgin
and basically he bought himself out of the contract.
Was it a good decision in hindsight of history?
I'm not sure.
George unquestionably lost the battle but won the war.
Because he got the freedom that he craved for.
'Cause he felt he had to get away.
Peace to George Michael.
Peace.
MICHAEL: I think the whole experience of losing Anselmo,
the period of grief, roughly two years,
that I didn't write a note of music...
And then, the absolute knowledge
that the next album I was going to write
would be about grief and recovery.
Older is my greatest moment.
♪ Kindness
♪ In your eyes I guess
♪ You heard me cry
♪ You smiled at me
♪ Like Jesus to a child
I sat at a keyboard,
played a very simple string part,
added a very, very gentle guitar part.
And my way of making music is very strange.
It's very strange.
Generally, I put my backing tracks together very simply on keyboards.
In this case, I think, I've added a little guitar.
But the moment I think there is something coming,
there is something important coming,
I shove everybody out of the room, I go in.
And then I just sing on repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
I sing, and I sing, and I sing.
This whole total stream of consciousness rubbish
that people would laugh their heads off if they heard what I was singing.
And then, I sang "Like Jesus to a Child".
Simple as that.
And I thought, "Oh, my God.
That's him.
That's him and me.
Like Jesus to a child."
Then I was so excited that I'd finally been able to put my feelings
about Anselmo into words.
And within a week of writing it,
I was singing it in front of the Brandenburg Gate,
playing my first kind of public tribute to him there.
♪ Well, I've been loved
♪ So, I know just What love is
♪ And the lover That I kissed
♪ Was always by my side...
I guess, "Jesus to a Child" is just the story of me being rescued from myself
by someone with an incredibly good heart.
♪ Oh the lover I still miss
♪ Was Jesus to a child
I just celebrate people who are able to use their joys
and their pains to really help people to heal.
MICHAEL: I think I wrote the best, most healing piece of music.
It was all systems go from that point on.
♪ In the absence of security
♪ I made my way Into the night♪
♪ Stupid Cupid keeps on Calling me
♪ And I see lovin' In his eyes
♪ I miss my baby
For anyone who had a clue about any kind of symbolism, I was coming out.
And you know, "Fast Love" makes me laugh,
because it's all about cruising and covering my pain.
Blunting out that pain with fast love.
Simple as that.
♪ I do believe that we are Practicing the same religion♪
There's not one track on that album that is not about Anselmo,
about the risk of AIDS, which was "Spinning The Wheel".
♪ Watch you spinning
♪ That wheel for me
♪ You've got a thing About danger
♪ Ain't you getting What you want from me?
♪ You've got a thing About strangers
♪ Baby that's what We used to be
♪ That's what we used to be
♪ You've got a thing About danger baby
♪ I guess the hungry Just can't see
♪ One of these days
♪ You're going To bring some home to me
I believe I was destined to feel that particular pain
so that I could do the ultimate with my music in terms of healing.
And the number of people who come up to me and say,
"Oh, you don't know how much you helped me withOlder
when I lost this person or when I lost that person."
♪ Give me time
♪ And I'll lead you
♪ Back to...♪
I remember theUnplugged really, really vividly.
Apart from the fact that I felt something magical happened,
I knew that everything that came out of my mouth,
was going to be in tune, I don't know why.
I suppose I wasn't used to playing in small venues
and just the fact that I could hear everything I was doing
because there wasn't a lot of amplification,
I just lost myself in singing that night.
♪ She takes the back road And the lane
♪ Past the school that has Not changed
♪ In all this time
♪ She thinks of when the boy Was young
♪ All the battles She had won
♪ Just to give him life
♪ That man
♪ She loved that man
♪ For all his life
♪ And now we meet To take him flowers
♪ And only God knows why
I came out to my parents the day after Anselmo died.
My mother, bless her, wasn't...
Wasn't...
She wasn't slightly fazed by the gay thing,
which she probably worked out years before.
She was just devastated that I had gone through
a year and a half of terror, you know, without her knowing.
Therefore, she couldn't help me in any way.
And I think that was really really painful for her.
The issue of me being gay was nothing.
I wrote a letter that flowed almost as though my hand was moving itself, you know.
This letter telling them
how much I loved him and how much joy there was for me
in my sexuality and not to worry for me
and not to feel like I had suffered anything.
Trying to, really trying to
save my mum from any pain that she thought she could have saved me from.
♪ "Take care, my love," He said
♪ You have been loved♪
And I'm so glad, I'm so glad my mom was there.
And I'm so glad, you know, for the first time ever,
and definitely the only time ever on film,
I actually said hello to my mom in the audience.
Hello, Mum.
And it was the last time she ever saw me play.
I had about six month's period where things were okay, and I was recording Older.
Then I found out that my mother had cancer.
I was so spiritually crushed after Mum died, so crushed, and so...
Felt so bloody picked on by the gods, you know.
For all of my adult life, she was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal.
A terrible, horrible loss.
From the day that I found out about my partner to the day that I could say,
I actually felt that I was well on the mend from my mother, it was just constant fear.
It was either fear of death or fear of the next bereavement, you know?
And I just took it very, very badly.
Very badly indeed.
I've never felt that kind of depression.
I felt it was something different to grief.
It was on top of grief because I was grieving for my mother still.
But it was something else. It was...
I felt like a sportsman that had had a terrible injury
in the middle of an incredibly successful career.
I'm so, so much more aware
of how intrinsic to my entire being it is, to be able to create music.
Having lost it for three or four years of my life,
I really did, I lost the music at the center of me,
which was like losing God for me.
It really was. It was the darkest, darkest time.
But even when I've lost control,
even when I've really hit rock bottom,
I believe that the red line is still there.
I'd just like to say very genuinely, I am really touched by this.
The first half of the '90s was pretty crap for me,
and 1996 has, kind of, made it all worthwhile.
Thank you very much.
MAN: I think people genuinely adore George, not just the music,
but they feel for him and his struggles.
I hadn't actually planned on being internationally humiliated that day.
NEWSREADER: Popstar George Michael
is arrested in a Los Angeles public toilet.
Ladies and gentleman, welcome, please, George Michael.
[AUDIENCE CHEERING]
MICHAEL: I have to thank... this is a great honor for me,
because my mum would allow me to stay up
only to watch theParkinson show.
So, I'm very, very privileged to be here.
And she probably wouldn't have been quite as thrilled
that I had to take my willy out to get on here.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]
"What were you thinking?
That's what everyone wants to know.
What were you thinking?"
I responded to something, and I responded to, you know, very handsome American cop.
You know, they don't send Colombo in there to just...
Everyone had this go at him because he didn't come out when he was 18.
Loads of people didn't come out when they were 18.
Especially when they've got signed at some fucking giant record label.
But boy, did he come out later in a big way.
♪ And yes, I've been bad
♪ Doctor won't you do with me What you can?
When he came out, I wanted to go, "George, you don't need.
We know!
Don't make a song and dance about it."
And he did. He did a song about it, didn't he?
Did a whole song and dance about it.
♪ I never really Said it before
There is one recurring theme to my actions,
as a celebrity or as a person, as an adult.
And that is if I am pressured into anything, I react against it.
My reaction to this was I'm not gonna be like
another one of these people that's peeking out
from behind the net curtains a month later, you know?
♪ I think I'm done With the sofa
♪ I think I'm done With the hall
♪ I think I'm done With the kitchen table, baby
♪ Let's go outside
One of my closest friend said that his mother said
"He's not the first, he won't be the last
"he's just the biggest." And I thought I like that.
GERVAIS: He disarms the press, 'cause they think they've got him.
They say, "Oh, you did this." And he goes, "Yep."
"And?"
♪ And yes, I've been bad
♪ Doctor, won't you do with me What you can
And then when they went, "Ah, you're gay!"
He went, "Yeah. Sorry, I didn't call you."
You know what I mean? He didn't call everyone.
MICHAEL: I think the truth is,
I'm just not afraid of being laughed at.
GERVAIS: InExtras, George played George Michael
on Hampstead Heath looking for fun.
MICHAEL: Ricky came to me with it written,
and I think I made a few changes.
I only got 20 minutes, actually, I'm on my lunch break.
He just nailed it.
He gave us that sort of decadent, almost bored rock star...
Lunch break?
Yeah, I'm doing community service.
Are you still doing that?
Not that one. No, I'm doing another one now.
I'm picking up litter now.
All right.
What did you do wrong this time?
Fly tipping.
Believe it or not.
All right.
Yeah, I was helping Annie Lennox out with an old fridge freezer
and she said, "Shall I call the council?"
I said, "No, don't bother with that.
"There's a skip at the end of my street."
So, 2:30 in the morning, we're tipping it in there and fucking police show up.
How did they get called in?
Well, it was Stewart Copeland's Skip,
and he called Sting and Sting called the fucking council
because he's a fucking do-gooder.
Now me and Annie are picking up litter.
It was great. It was really, really great.
I was really, really knocked out on how good of an actor he was.
And such a sport.
I think people have a wrong impression of him
because they only see what they get in the press
or in the newspapers or whatever.
But he's hilariously funny.
Why can't I come to Comic Relief?
Because you're a joke, George. It's embarrassing.
I can't walk into Comic Relief with you.
Comic Relief's about helping people like you.
And I did laugh at the headlines.
I did laugh at some of the things that were said, you know.
When it came to the car thing, I did something wrong.
When it came to the Hampstead Heath thing, fuck off...
[MUSIC PLAYING ON STEREO]
Yeah?
Love this one, don't you?
♪ Call me good
♪ Call me bad
♪ Call me If you want to, baby
♪ George and I know That you say
Come on.
♪ And I know I made you happy
♪ With wild day that You'd ever had
♪ Baby
♪ I'm your baby
I love it.
MICHAEL: James' little excursion with me in the Volvo
has turned to something world conquering, you know.
CORDEN: Without that sketch, I don't think I'd have a successful show in America
because there was something so joyful about it.
There was something so brilliant about being with him that made us go,
"I wonder if we could do that with other artists."
MICHAEL: Again, he came to me with the basis of it, and I made a few changes,
and I'm sure they would have made them funnier,
but they weren't sure how far I was going to go.
Whereas I was prepared to go as far as it took.
Well, I better get going because, you know,
I'm gonna have to get back to work soon.
Come on, then, you. I'll give you a quickie.
Boy, I'm not that desperate, matey.
Cheeky bastard.
♪ I'll be Your sexual freak...
GERVAIS: I think he's challenged the stereotype of the gay man as well,
and what was acceptable.
Because, you know, even when people were out in, like the 60s, the 70s,
they were a safe, sexless, gay man.
Whereas George went, I've got a cock.
And that frightened some people.
Yeah, literally, I imagine.
You know something about George, he's really sexy.
You know? Really sexy.
And living with that, good-looking, sexy, talented...
You know, it's tough out there.
He's very hairy, isn't he?
♪ Doing it to me, to me
♪ I know that you're horny
♪ But there's something about That Bush ain't right...
♪ Right, right, right...♪
JOHN: There's so many different facets to George.
And you can see him growing as an artist
and moving away from the original stuff into a more
beautiful kind of Edith Piaf, Frank Sinatra territory.
But it's George.
♪ I was the kid With the drum
♪ Say, don't you remember?
♪ They called me Al
♪ It was Al all the time
♪ Say, don't you remember?
♪ I'm your pal!
♪ Brother, can you spare A dime?
♪ Buddy, can you spare
♪ A dime?♪
AUSTIN: George can sing with Stevie, Aretha or Elton.
And, as Tony Bennett said, "You know, everyone took two weeks.
George came in and did it in a day."
♪ How do you keep The music playing?
♪ When I feel for her
BENNETT: I just loved him. He was very friendly.
We got along great.
He just walked in very prepared and he was so spontaneous.
We did it in one take.
I couldn't believe how equipped he was.
♪ May not see...
And I remember saying, "Boy, this guy is going to be around a long time."
♪ Forever♪
I really am not in the business of selling myself anymore.
When I do it, I want to do it properly.
Mostly I just said I respect making music, kind of like, I know, like,
How much are we gonna shout at the end of the day?
It's the art form that you love, that you woke up that morning
and had to go to the studio and record it
because it was like bursting inside of you.
♪ It's like a conversation
♪ Where no-one stops To breathe
♪ Is it my imagination?
♪ Or did God already leave The table?
♪ Such destruction
WONDER: Music is a funny thing.
You have to remember the language that's forever spoken.
And yet, it is that language that we all understand.
♪ And the satellite says
♪ "Take a look At all we have"
♪ But the old man says
♪ "You want my family, For your liberty
♪ I can't do that"
BLIGE: You're writing songs kind of to set yourself free.
You're speaking from your truth.
You're speaking from your life
and four million, five million, ten million people are like, "Me too."
That's the payoff.
♪ Whether they be amber, Green or blue
♪ There's a piece of God Staring back at you
MICHAEL: Funnily enough,
in the last five, six years of my life,
I've finally come to terms with the fact
that I'm not like other people at all.
And maybe that is why I'm a star.
Maybe that is the bit that I've never actually been able to accept.
And since I was outed, I feel like I've genuinely learned to respect myself.
I just believed I wasn't a big enough a character to support that kind of fame.
And actually, I understand that I never was like other people,
and I shouldn't have been disappointed in myself
for not being like other people.
♪ Children in his arms
♪ He turns his back
Okay. It's fine.
The moment I finished the track "Patience", I remember driving home,
you know, listening to this album
that I never thought would get finished
or made actually, at some points,
and remember thinking well, that is...
That's enough.
I finally thought, you know what?
If a bus hit me tomorrow,
I would be happy with the music I left in the world.
♪ Duh-du-du-duh
♪ As around the sun
♪ The Earth knows She's revolving
BLIGE: I absolutely, definitely know
that George Michael fits into the category
of a great artist, a great performer.
♪ Just as hate knows Love's the cure
♪ You can rest Your mind assured
♪ That I'll be loving...
BLIGE: You could hear pain, you could hear joy,
I mean, you can hear everything.
♪ As now can't reveal The mystery
♪ Of tomorrow
WONDER: Mary J Blige and George Michael doing "As", it was amazing!
The marriage of the two of them
was just a magical experience of that song.
And I was in awe when I heard it.
♪ Until the rainbow Burns the stars
♪ Out of the sky
♪ Until the ocean covers Every mountain high
♪ Until the dolphins fly And parrots live at sea
♪ Until we dream of life And life becomes a dream
♪ Now ain't that loving you?♪
I know him as an extremely gifted artist,
and I embrace the records that he made
with Aretha and Whitney, probably my two greatest vocalists.
♪ If we take this chance♪ If we take this chance
♪ And extend To each other romance
♪ And I hope
♪ Baby, I hope
DAVIS: You want to watch him, you're interested in him,
you want to listen to him, you want to know what he's got to say.
The impact that he's had, you have to see when you go to his concerts.
You have to really see it. It is phenomenal.
So, would you like one more song?
The word I think I'm hearing the most is...
♪ Freedom!
♪ You've gotta give For what you take
♪ Freedom
When you play somebody a record likeFreedom,
that music is going to continue to mean something to people,
like, as long as it's heard.
♪ Freedom!♪
And that's why you get to have a three-decade career.
♪ All we have to do now
♪ Is take these lies
♪ And make them true somehow
♪ All we have to see
♪ Is that I don't belong To you
♪ And you don't belong to me
♪ Yeah! Yeah!
♪ Freedom
♪ You've gotta give For what you take
♪ Freedom
♪ Hold on to my freedom!
♪ Freedom
♪ You've gotta give For what you take
♪ What you take
♪ Yeah
♪ Yeah!
♪ You've gotta give For what you Give what you
♪ May not be what You want from me
♪ Just the way It's got to be!♪
INTERVIEWER: What would you be hopeful for as a way to be remembered?
You mean what would I like written on my...
INTERVIEWER: Well, let's not go that far.
Okay.
INTERVIEWER: But I mean, what would you hope the legacy that's attached to your name is?
Great songwriter.
You know, and...
I think two things. One...
You know, great singer-songwriter from a period of time
which I don't think will be seen again, you know?
I don't think youth culture will produce people like
myself and Madonna and Prince.
I don't think it's going to do that anymore.
I think it's too fragmented now.
So, I'd like to be remembered as one of those last,
kind of big stars in the sense that there was a certain glamour to it.
But really, it's just the songs.
And I hope that people think of me
as someone who had some kind of integrity.
And I hope I'm remembered for that in a way.
Very unlikely. I think it's all been a waste of time.
Waste of effort.
♪ I'd say love Was a magical thing
♪ I'd say love would keep us From pain
♪ Had I been there
♪ I would promise you All of my life
♪ But to lose you would cut Like a knife
♪ So, I don't dare
♪ No, I don't dare!
♪ 'Cause I never came close
♪ In all of these years
♪ You are the only one To stop my tears
♪ And I'm so scared
♪ I'm so scared
♪ Take me back in time
♪ Maybe I can forget
♪ Turn a different corner
♪ And we never Would have met
♪ Would you care?
♪ I don't understand it For you, it's a breeze
♪ Little by little
♪ You've brought me To my knees
♪ Don't you care?
♪ No, I've never come close
♪ In all of these years
♪ You are the only one To stop my tears
♪ I'm so scared
♪ Of this love
♪ And if all that there is Is this fear of being used
♪ I should go back To being lonely
♪ And confused
♪ If I could, I would
♪ I swear
♪ Oh
♪ Yes, I swear
♪ If I could
♪ I would
♪ I swear ♪