Grammy-winning singer-songwriter George Michael — who went from squeaky-clean pop hits with Wham! to a successful solo career marred by sex and drug scandals — died Sunday. He was 53.
His death came 32 years after Michael and former singing partner Andrew Ridgeley released the yuletide hit “Last Christmas,” which since then has repeatedly run up the charts in the UK.
Over the decades, Michael has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide — and become an icon for gay rights after coming out in 1998.
“It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother and friend George passed away peacefully at home over the Christmas period,” said a statement from Michael’s management, which identified heart failure as the cause of death.
An ambulance was called to a property in the village of Goring, about 50 miles west of London, around 8:45 a.m. EST, according to the BBC.
Cops don’t consider Michael’s death suspicious, the BBC reported.
Michael, born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in 1963, shot to fame as part of 1980s music duo Wham!, which scored a No. 1 hit with “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” The song’s video featured Michael dancing in outfits that included blue-and-white short shorts, a long-sleeve pink T-shirt and yellow, fingerless gloves.
“Heartbroken at the loss of my beloved friend Yog,” Ridgeley tweeted following Michael’s death. “Me, his loved ones, his friends, the world of music, the world at large. 4ever loved. A xx.”
Shortly before Wham! split, Michael started his solo career and quickly rose to megastardom with the single “Careless Whisper” — which reached No. 1 on the charts in more than 20 countries.
His first album, “Faith,” landed the heartthrob a 1988 Grammy for Album of the Year, just a year after he and soul legend Aretha Franklin shared a Grammy for the duet “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).”
But his image took repeated hits, including a scandal over his bust for “engaging in a lewd act” in a Beverly Hills men’s room in 1998, which led him to reveal he was gay.
Michael’s admission helped boost his popularity, and he also used his arrest as fodder for a song, “Outside,” and accompanying video poking fun at himself.
He was one of the first music stars to come out, and became a patron of Elton John’s AIDS charity. In 2011 he tweeted, “I HAVE NEVER AND WILL NEVER APOLOGISE FOR MY SEX LIFE! GAY SEX IS NATURAL, GAY SEX IS GOOD! NOT EVERYBODY DOES IT, BUT…..HA HA!” in a coy reference to the lyrics in his song “I Want Your Sex.”
After his late-’90s problems, his trouble would continued in London in 2006, when cops found him slumped over the steering wheel of his car near the famed Hyde Park Corner in the city’s West End. He was arrested again a couple years later for possessing crack cocaine while reportedly cruising for sex in London’s Hampstead Heath park.
In a 2009 interview with the Guardian — during which he repeatedly rolled joints — Michael denied being a drug addict, but admitted: “I’m surprised that I’ve survived my own dysfunction, really.”
In 2010, he spent two months in the slammer after crashing his Range Rover into a photo-printing shop in North London while high on pot and anti-anxiety medication.
He later cheated death from pneumonia, spending weeks in intensive care after complaining of chest pains just two hours before a scheduled concert in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 21, 2011.
In a 2014 interview, Michael told the Scottish Sun newspaper that his brush with death from pneumonia had led him to quit smoking pot, saying, “I decided to change my lie and I haven’t touched it for well over a year and a half.”
With wires
