Boy George: still pouting. Photograph by Magnus Hastings for The Observer
❚ SIX THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED from today’s 2,000-word interview in The Observer Magazine:
1 — George O’Dowd opens his mind the way others open their front door. Not that he answers everything – but he has an unusual emotional honesty.
2 — He recognises the strange dichotomy of drag. “You are wearing a mask, but on the other hand trying to draw attention, so it’s a kind of Look at me, don’t look at me.”
3 — In 2009 he was jailed in Britain after a bizarre case involving the false imprisonment of a 29-year-old Norwegian male escort… Does he have an instinctive emotional response to the episode – perhaps regret or guilt or shame? “No, I don’t think about any of those specifics.”
4 — “When it was time to [leave jail] I was thinking: Oh my God, I’ve got to go out of here and deal with my life. I am not sure I want to leave!”
5 — George loves and admires his mum hugely but steered clear when he was messed up. She saw through him and he couldn’t take the scrutiny.
6 — Only after his father’s death did [his family] achieve a real unity. “I think his death got everyone back together… I think we are a better family than we have ever been. In the past, everyone would turn up for a crisis. Now, we all turn up for dinner.”
➢ Read Catherine Deveney’s full interview with Boy George
at The Observer online
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 