George Michael was an English singer-songwriter and record producer. Regarded as a pop culture icon, he was known as a creative force in songwriting, vocal performance, and visual presentation.

Born in East Finchley, Middlesex, Michael rose to fame after forming the pop duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. He took part in Band Aid's UK number-one single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in 1984 and performed at the following year's Live Aid concert. His debut studio album, Faith (1987), won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and became one of the best-selling albums of all time, having sold over 25 million copies worldwide. Michael then went on to release a series of multimillion-selling albums, including Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990), Older (1996), Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael (1998), Songs from the Last Century (1999), Patience (2004), and Twenty Five (2006). His most successful singles include "Careless Whisper", "A Different Corner", "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)", "Faith", "Father Figure", "One More Try", "Monkey", "Praying for Time", "Freedom! '90", "Jesus to a Child", "Fastlove", "Outside", "Amazing", and "An Easier Affair".

Michael came out as gay in 1998, and was an active LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser. His personal life, drug use, and legal troubles made headlines following an arrest for public lewdness in 1998 and multiple drug-related offences. The 2005 documentary A Different Story covered his career and personal life. His 25 Live tour spanned three tours from 2006 to 2008. In 2011 Michael fell into a coma during a bout with pneumonia, but recovered. He performed his final concert at London's Earls Court in 2012. Michael died of heart disease on Christmas Day in 2016, at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

Michael is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, scoring 10 number-one songs on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and 13 number-one songs on the UK singles chart. He won numerous music awards, including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. He was listed among Rolling Stone's 200 Greatest Singers of All Time and Billboard's Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time. The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.

Family life

George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (Greek: Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου) on 25 June 1963, in East Finchley. He was the only son and the youngest child of three. His father, Kyriacos "Jack" Panayiotou, was a Greek Cypriot restaurateur who emigrated from Patriki, Cyprus, to England in the 1950s. His mother, Lesley Angold (born Harrison, 1937–1997), was an English dancer. ichael had two sisters: Yioda (born 1958) and Melanie (1960–2019).

During the late 1980s, Michael had a relationship with make-up artist Kathy Jeung, who was regarded for a time as his artistic "muse" and who appeared in the "I Want Your Sex" video. Michael later said that she had been his "only bona fide" girlfriend, and that she knew of what he then understood to be his bisexuality; he later understood it to be homosexuality. In 2016, Jeung reacted to Michael's death by calling him a "true friend" with whom she had spent "some of the best time of [her] life".

In 1991, Michael established a relationship with Anselmo Feleppa, a Brazilian dress designer whom he had met at the Rock in Rio concert in January that year. Six months into their relationship, Feleppa discovered that he was HIV-positive. Michael later said: "It was terrifying news. I thought I could have the disease too. I couldn't go through it with my family because I didn't know how to share it with them – they didn't even know I was gay."In 1993, Feleppa died of an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage. Michael's single "Jesus to a Child" is a tribute to Feleppa (Michael consistently dedicated it to him before performing it live), as is his album Older (1996). In 2008, speaking about the loss of Feleppa, Michael said: "It was a terribly depressing time. It took about three years to grieve, then after that I lost my mother. I felt almost like I was cursed."

In 1996, Michael entered into a long-term relationship with Kenny Goss, a former flight attendant, cheerleading coach, and sportswear executive from Dallas, Texas. They had a home in Dallas, a 16th-century house in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and an £8 million mansion in Highgate, North London. In late November 2005, it was reported that Michael and Goss planned to register their relationship as a civil partnership in the UK, but because of negative publicity and his upcoming tour, they postponed their plans. On 22 August 2011, the opening night of his Symphonica Tour, Michael announced that he and Goss had split two years earlier.

In 2012, Michael entered a relationship with Fadi Fawaz, a Lebanese-Australian celebrity hairstylist and freelance photographer based in London. It was Fawaz who found Michael deceased on Christmas morning 2016. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources

• "George Michael." Wikipedia, revision of 15 March 2025. < link > Accessed 18 March 2025.
• Peltier, David. "George Michael." FindAGrave, published 25 December 2016. < link > Accessed 18 March 2025.