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
Remember that I was out of the closet at the age of sixteen. My parents knew I was gay; I'd had to tell them.
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.
Gay unions, what is that about? I haven't been invited to any ceremonies, and I wouldn't go anyway. The idea that gay people have to mimic what obviously doesn't work for straight people any more... I think is a bit tragic. I am looking forward to gay divorces.
Part of me looks at the gay movement now and worries that we're losing our individuality.
A lot of Donna Summer and things that maybe weren't trendy anymore or weren't hip in gay clubs but you'd hear them at Taboo.
Being in the Boy Scouts, you don't think about whether people are gay or straight. You're busy putting up tents and learning to cut sausages.
And being gay isn't so easy, either I've always said that if anyone ever thought I was straight they must need glasses - but when I finally came out and said, "Yes, I do sleep with men and I'm gay," yeah, I lost record sales. There's no question - big, big time.
The world is less homophobic, depending on where you are in the world. As a gay man I feel very strongly about those issues around the world - there've been huge changes and developments, but there are still places where things are scary.
On Madonna: She's a gay man trapped in a woman's body.
I'm not gay, and I'm not a transvestite.
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.
There's this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That's completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved.
I stared at his picture for so many hours when I was pre-teen, ... When we were doing the recording for the album I'd look across and there were those eyes, coming out at me like lasers from a picture of 20 years ago. It was wild.
I was unwelcome in the U.S. for four years.