Goergios Kyriacos Panayiotou – known professionally as George Michael – was a famous English singer, songwriter and record producer. George Michael rose to fame as a member of the music duo Wham! and became known for his hit singles such as Last Christmas, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, albums such as Listen Without Prejudice and Faith. The debut album Faith sold more than 20 million copies the world over and catapulted the singer to worldwide fame.
The pop superstar passed away due to cardiac arrest on December 25, 2016 at the age of 53. He was found dead on Sunday at his home in Goring in Oxfordshire, England. George Michael was one of pop’s reigning stars in the 1980’s and 1990’s – first making his appearance as a handsome teen-pop idol with Wham! and then arriving as a sex symbol with his debut album Faith. However, Mr. Michael wasn’t comfortable with the superficiality and relentless promotion of 1980’s style pop stardom.
Michael George Died Many A Deaths When He Was Alive
George has had close encounters with death many a times during his career. In 2011, during the Symphonica tour, he almost died from severe pneumonia. Confined to intensive care unit for a week in Vienna, the actor survived the ordeal and later thanked the medical staff of Vienna General Hospital for saving his life. His brush with death didn’t end at that. Two years later, the pop singer met with a terrible accident. He was airlifted and treated for the severe head injury after he fell from his car in the middle of the road.
Life Had Been Constantly Unfair To the Pop Singer
George survived the accident and just when everything seemed to be back on track, the pop singer fell sick the very next year. He battled depression and at one point in time revealed that he felt like God has actually cursed him. He faced another major setback when his long-time boyfriend Anselmo Feleppa died of Aids-related ailment in 1993.
Just when the singer was recovering from his boyfriend’s sad demise, his mother passed away. And then the puppy he loved dearly passed away too. When life hits you hard so many times, it all boils down to how much you can hold on to. Although it’s easy to say stuff like “It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit. And keep moving forward”, only the people walking the journey how painful it can get. Unable to bear any more pain, the pop singer turned to Prozac and marijuana, sometimes smoking up to 25 joints a day. He then became embroiled in a bitter dispute with his record company Sony. He had accused the label of not doing enough for promoting his second album. George eventually lost the case.
George Michael was arrested in 1998 for performing a “lewd act” in a Beverly Hills toilet. He was arrested several times in the United Kingdom. In 2010, he was given a 5-year driving ban and sentenced to eight weeks in prison for crashing his Range Rover into a Snappy Snaps branch. The singer is reported to have told The Guardian that some people wanted to view him as a tragic figure “with all the cottaging and drug-taking” because “those things are not what most people aspire to, and I think it removes people’s envy to see your weaknesses”. However, the pop singer did not see them as weaknesses. “It’s just who I am,” he said.