WITHIN hours of George Michael’s death being reported, details started emerging of the singer’s secret double life of charity, voluntary work and generosity.
There were reports that he had worked in a homeless shelter, asking the other volunteers to keep his presence there secret.
There was a story about a waitress worrying about debt, who Michael tipped £5,000.
Then there was the woman taking part in Deal Or No Deal who wanted to win money to fund her IVF treatment. After being beaten by the banker, Michael, who’d been watching, phoned her the next day and gave her the £15,000 she needed.
There was his personal support to the Terrence Higgins Trust for “many years”, according to Jane Barron from the HIV charity. That was, in part, thanks to a share of the royalties to his 1991 duet with Elton John, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.
During his appearance on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where he was raising funds for a charity, he gambled on an answer he wasn’t too sure about, saying: “If I lose it, I’ll just pay it.” All the royalties from 1996 number one single Jesus To A Child went to Childline.
Dame Esther Rantzen, the founder and president of the charity, told of how the singer “gave millions” to the cause. “For years now he has been the most extraordinarily generous philanthropist, giving money to Childline, but he was determined not to make his generosity public so no one outside the charity knew how much he gave to the nation’s most vulnerable children,” she said.
Michael, who found fame with Wham! in the 80s, before a long and successful solo career, was just 53. Police said the death was “unexplained but not suspicious”.
His manager, Michael Lippman, confirmed the news saying the singer died of heart failure and had been found “in bed, lying peacefully”.
Musically, Michael was a megastar. He had seven UK number one singles and 36 UK Top 40 singles, and seven UK number one solo albums. His debut album, Faith, released in 1987, has sold more than 20million copies worldwide. Wham! sold 25million albums in the 1980s alone.
Michael, who was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, was just a teenager when he and Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley, wrote Careless Whisper.
When about to release it as his first solo single, the record company sent it to veteran producer Jerry Wexler to fix. Michael hated what came back. Rather than keep quiet and go along with his label, like what most other 21-year-old pop stars would do in that situation, he said no, re-recorded, and reproduced the song himself.
It went to number one in 20 different countries, shifting more than six million copies.
Ridgeley tweeted: “Heartbroken at the loss of my beloved friend Yog. Me, his loved ones, his friends, the world of music, the world at large. 4ever loved. A xx”
He’d had a few run-ins with the police in recent years. Perhaps the most high profile was his arrest in 1998 after being caught cottaging in public toilets in Beverly Hills, California. Months later he parodied the episode in the video of 1998 single Outside, which reached number two.
In October 2006 he was found slumped over the wheel of his car, and pleaded guilty to driving while unfit through drugs and was banned from driving for two years. Then in 2010 he was given an eight-week prison sentence for crashing his Range Rover into a Snappy Snaps shop in north London.
There were tributes from other pop megastars yesterday. Madonna took to Twitter, writing: “Farewell my friend! Another great artist leaves us”. Duran Duran referred to the loss of “another talented soul”. Brian May, the Queen guitarist, said the news of Michael’s death was “beyond sad” and LaToya Jackson said he had “an amazing gift”. Martin Fry, the lead singer and songwriter with ABC, said on Twitter: “Absolutely devastated to hear of the loss of George Michael.”
Elton John wrote: “I am in deep shock. I have lost a beloved friend – the kindest, most generous soul and a brilliant artist. My heart goes out to his family, friends and all of his fans”
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