To see George Michael in 1984 was to see exuberance — those fluorescent-white teeth (can teeth really be that white?), that blond-tipped mane of hair with the head flung back, those smoldering eyes, that body!
He was basking in the crowd’s love, and he was clawing for more.
And that was all that the public saw of him in the 1980s and most of the ‘90s — his image on MTV, perfectly coiffed, perfectly lighted, his gaze direct, his talent spilling off the screen.
For a while, everything Michael touched turned to solid gold, platinum even. He left the duo Wham! to launch a solo career, and his success exploded, with four No. 1 hits off his 1987 debut solo album, “Faith.”
But subsequent efforts didn’t chart as high, and persistent rumblings that he was gay, at a time when publicly admitting it could kill a performer’s career, dogged him.
When he sued his record label, Sony, in 1993, his career lost momentum. It didn’t help that he lost the suit, nor that his legal efforts generated little public interest or sympathy.
Author James Gavin, in this biography from last year, deftly charts Michael’s rise and fall, though the fall is long and at times sags. Such is self-destruction. Mr. Gavin lifts the rock on Michael’s carefully guarded past, revealing the squirming things beneath.
It is no secret that George Michael struggled with his sexual orientation and his family’s lack of acceptance. What is less well-known is the extent of his father’s mistreatment of the young Michael, and the depth of his consequent self-loathing. Mr. Gavin quotes Michael saying, “It’s very hard to be proud of your sexuality when it hasn’t given you any joy.”
He treated his significant others cavalierly. He often left the love of his life, Anselmo Feleppa, alone at their Los Angeles house “like the lady who waits for the husband to come home,” as one of Feleppa’s friends put it, while Michael partied in public with supposed girlfriends.
When Feleppa, dying of AIDS, went home to Brazil to live out what would be his final days, Michael never came to visit. According to Mr. Gavin’s research, Michael dragged his feet about flying down, telling himself Feleppa’s health would improve, until it was too late. Anselmo Feleppa died in 1993 at age 36.
The 1997 death of Michael’s mother, who had loved and accepted him unconditionally, compounded his depression.
Per the book, Michael lived most of his adult life in a cannabis stupor, seemingly never without a spliff in hand. In addition to pot, he took other illegal drugs, including cocaine and an ecstasy-inducing party drug called GHB. These stifled his creativity and drive and made him mercurial, difficult and paranoid. Musicians whose time he didn’t respect and whose patience he tried stopped working with him. Later, the drugs contributed to Michael’s weight gain, adding to his self-disgust.
Though he tried desperately to hide his sexuality from the public, lying about it or equivocating in interviews, the truth came out when he was arrested in 1998 for seeking anonymous gay sex in a public bathroom in a park in Beverly Hills. His career in the United States, already on the decline, never regained its luster.
Self-deprecation and wit helped him weather the controversies, but audiences didn’t care for his in-concert complaints about how life had treated him. In spite of apologies and promises to do better, his behavior did not change and he continued to rack up arrests, once in a public bathroom for possession of drugs and other times for car crashes while under the influence of drugs.
Many fans continued to worship him. It was only feedback he accepted, but at the same time, he resented it. Mr. Gavin quotes him comparing his career to a plastic bath toy that never seems to sink.
To anyone who was alive when George Michael was in peak form, this book offers the best glimpse yet at the troubled man behind the music. James Gavin does a laudable job portraying the drive, talent and perfectionism behind Michael’s swift rise — and the self-loathing behind his long fall.
Laura Malt Schneiderman is an Assignment Editor and Interactive Developer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She is co-author of the book “Kaufmann’s: The Family That Built Pittsburgh’s Famed Department Store.”
First Published: August 13, 2023, 9:30 a.m.