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
My family knew I was gay when I was 15, long before I got famous. But it's a very different thing coming out to your family and coming out to the universe. That's a big step. Maybe without me, there wouldn't be Adam Lambert. Without Bowie, there wouldn't be me. Without Quentin Crisp, there wouldn't have been Bowie. So everything is part of a big daisy chain.
I suppose all of those New Romantic clubs were quite up their own asses in a way. Well, Taboo was up its own ass in a different way, but not in terms of rules.
As a kid, I would've loved to get a tweet from David Bowie or Joan Rivers or Tom Cruise. It's great that you can communicate with people and it's instant.
Whenever there's an interview with me, I might read it, but I don't read the comments because they're so hateful sometimes. When someone writes something nasty, I just think, "If that's your contribution to my day, I really don't need your impoliteness." I'm lucky that people are very cool with me and I get a lot of love. I appreciate that.
People say things about me all the time and I get over it. I've had some appalling things told about me.
A difficult crowd will always test your true ability.
I think people could be a bit friendlier. The only real contact you have with people is when they're annoyed if you've had a party - you know, it's been a bit too noisy for them or something.
I don't get all this Speedo stuff actually, I mean, whatever happened to the feather boa?
I was unwelcome in the U.S. for four years.
I'd got very successful, everyone knew who I was, but I felt very empty.
You find out so many interesting things when you're not on drugs.
A lot of people felt I was getting work because I was Boy George. My response at the time was that there's a lot of DJs making records, they're not all making good records, but they have the right to do that.
I absolutely admit I had him in the handcuffs so he wouldn't go anywhere while I checked the computer... I certainly wasn't going to kill him. That's hardly going to do my career any good, is it?
What's really sad is that a lot of very talented people are being forced to do things that are very embarrassing and I don't intend to be one of them.