Pop star George Michael has admitted smoking crack cocaine and said cruising for sex with strangers is ‘nicer’ than picking up men in bars.
The 46-year-old spoke candidly about his personal life in a newspaper interview and declared: “It’s just who I am.”
Advertisement
The singer, who is set to release the single December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas), said he had at one time spent his life “existing on a balance of Starbucks and weed”.
But he has now cut his use of cannabis from smoking 25 spliffs a day to “seven or eight”, he said.
The former Wham! star, who had his first solo hit in 1984, confirmed he was caught in possession of crack cocaine when he was arrested last year in public toilets on Hampstead Heath. But when questioned over the last time he had used the class A drug, he declined to answer.
Michael, who came out in 1998 after being arrested in Los Angeles for “engaging in a lewd act” in a public toilet, said he enjoyed “cottaging” on the Heath, which is close to his north London home.
“It’s a much nicer place to get some quick and honest sex than standing in a bar, E’d off your t*** shouting at somebody and hoping they want the same thing as you do in bed,” he said.
“The handful of times a year it’s bloody warm enough, I’ll do it. I’ll do it on a nice summer evening. Quite often there are camp fires up there.”
Advertisement
Michael said he is now focused on his music once again, but is unsure whether he will release a follow-up album to 2004’s Patience. Performances of a recent world tour feature on a new DVD.
He said: “I’ve got some great stuff, and I don’t know whether I should release it or hold on to it. It uses my supposed infamy on my own terms.”
Advertisement
The singer also attacked Sir Elton John, who has stated publicly that he feared for Michael’s health.
“Elton lives on that,” he said. “He will not be happy until I bang on his door in the middle of the night saying, ’Please, please, help me, Elton. Take me to rehab.’ It’s not going to happen.
“Elton just needs to shut his mouth and get on with his own life. Look, if people choose to believe that I’m sitting here in my ivory tower, Howard Hughesing myself with long fingernails and loads of drugs, then I can’t do anything about that, can I?”
Advertisement
He added: “People want to see me as tragic with all the cottaging and drug-taking... those things are not what most people aspire to, and I think it removes people’s envy to see your weaknesses. I don’t even see them as weaknesses any more. It’s just who I am.”