Washington (CNN)Soulful, dazzling talent, bewitching: There are many words to summarize the power of George Michael. .. Another: destructive.
Before his sexuality was definitely known to the public in 1998, this month 59-year-old Michael dug up the private pain of a gay man and it Made easier to read in an era defined by ferocious homosexual aversion.
Thirty years after Michael embarked on his solo career, parts of the world fought a new battle for LGBTQ equality, exploring the subtle and inspiring queer life of pop megastars. Feels less influential.
Part of what your book does is explore different aspects of George Michael-as you say, "hypermacho sex" Michael who was "God" and an uneasy person. How did you approach that process?
Michael created the character you just described in the first half of his life (the god of hypermacho sex) and destroyed it later in his life.
He reached its incredible peak in 1988 during a face tour of the then-world's biggest pop star album. That was what he had dreamed of for almost a lifetime, which left him miserable. It's an old story in the pop world: you get everything you want, but it's miserable. But what fascinated me was the process when Michael started by dismantling the first persona and then continued by dismantling himself.
I worked on the job by talking to more than 200 people who knew him, sometimes very easily and sometimes very well. The whole process was like rolling a rock on a hill. When I started writing a book, most people ignored me or said no. I think there are two reasons. For one, it was very close to his death and people were still alive. And second, people quickly became suspicious. Part of that is because Michael lived in hiding for the rest of his life. The people around him knew that they had to keep his secrets in order to stay in his good grace.
Your biography is part of a recent series of works that seek to reassess the mass abuse of stars and the psychological sacrifices of celebrities that we allegedly love. think. There are Gerik Kennedy's 2022 book, "I didn't have almost everything: Whitney Houston's Defense," and Samantha Stark's 2021 documentary, "Flaming Britney Spears."
Michael's pop music is short-lived, so you're very good at it. It is constantly changing and most people are left behind pretty quickly. And Michael didn't expect it to go away, like the other people you mentioned, the one who achieved what he achieved. And when that happened, it crushed him.
This was certainly true for Houston, but Michael needed love and acceptance from everyone, so when the second solo album sold half of the first solo album, We speak about 7.5 million copies for about 20 million copies. 7.5 million copies is a phenomenal success-he has been devastated. He saw it as a horrific blow and the album almost a failure.
There is also the unreality of life in the stratosphere. You completely lose contact with the people below.
I also want to say that he had a big heart. One of Michael's greatest wonders was the fact that he donated millions of pounds to a charity. In the mid-to-late 1990s, he stepped up his charitable donations when things really started to unravel. And I think it was a self-healing gesture on his part. I think it was one way he felt he could have a direct impact on people's lives beyond the more abstract pop star way.
Michael endured so much pain early in his life and career. The loss of his lover to AIDS, the loss of his mother. Has he recovered from those losses?
No, he didn't. He got worse and worse. He felt terribly sacrificed, just as the world was trying to catch him.
Some of my books talk about it. There is a passage about Equality Rocks (2000 charity concert of the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocate). At this celebration of new equality, freedom and unity, Michael could only see his crowd and see all the pain that homosexuality caused him. And the solitude he gave at the concert is a long anger about everything that has hurt him in his life. He was angry with all that.
What do you think is missing from the conversation about Michael?
I didn't really want to calm people, so I wrote an epilogue that I hope is brighter than the previous one. Whenever I told people the name "George Michael", I tried to focus on the fact that they smile. Soon, the name brings a rush of good associations, and they seem to overwrite all the sad and dark ones.
You also need to do your best to empathize. I wouldn't have been able to tell this story without finding sympathy for Michael. You must somehow be able to put yourself on behalf of the person you are writing. If you can do that, you won't fall into the trap of judgment. And judging is bad for a biographer. It's easy to see someone like Michael who had everything and he doesn't feel anything. But I cannot exaggerate the importance of empathy.