Boy George
Boy George
George Alan O'Dowd, known professionally as Boy George, is an English singer, songwriter, DJ, fashion designer and photographer. He is the lead singer of the Grammy and Brit Award-winning pop band Culture Club. At the height of the band's fame, during the 1980s, they recorded global hit songs such as "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", "Time" and "Karma Chameleon" and George was known for his soulful voice and androgynous appearance. He was part of the English New Romantic...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth14 June 1961
CityLondon, England
I used to think of George Michael as being mechanical, like a scientist in a white coat, working in a laboratory, creating perfect harmonies, and all the while I was secretly admiring him.
I'm a big fan of Yoko, one of those weird people who really love her music, and who argues with people all the time, because people do write her off.
I've never felt as though I didn't belong, I just acted as though I did.
I didn't think anyone was going to buy 'Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me?' It was really personal, not a hit record, I thought. I wanted us to sound completely different. Shows how much I knew.
There's this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That's completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved.
I wear makeup and dress this way because I think it makes me look better. I am not doing it to get people to stare at me. If I wanted to do that I could just put a pot on my head, wear a wedding dress, and run screaming down the street.
The most political thing you can do is be yourself
I am what I am. There's nothing I can do about it.
The best thing you can do is work on your personality because we're all gonna get ugly.
A lot of what I've been learning in the last two years is due to therapy - about my sexuality, why things go wrong, why relationships haven't worked. It isn't anything to do with anybody else; it's to do with me.
A lot of people come up to me all the time and say thank you for helping me be who I am. So my thing wasn't just about sexuality. It was about anyone who felt different; anyone who felt out of place. Being gay was one part of it.
I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of vaginas. They bother me in the way that spiders bother some people.
When you're younger, you think you're in competition with everyone. You think everyone's success is a threat to you, and this is a thing you grow out of. You get older and you suddenly realize the only person you're in competition with is yourself.
Leigh [Bowery] affected a posh English voice and elongated his vowels, and you never knew if he was being sincere or mocking you. If I ever commented on one of his outfits he would snip, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Boy George. I do value your opinion." And then he would spin and make some ridiculous noise and mince off.