Boy George has shared his regrets over “not very nice” comments he posted about Liam Payne before his death and called for young stars to be given preventative therapy to stop tragedies from happening.
A former heroin addict, the Culture Club legend – who likens drug taking to playing “Russian roulette”- recalls being tearful when he was hit by news of Liam’s “senseless” death.
He says: “I was up at five in the morning, and it came up on the American news, and I literally was like ‘What the f**k?’ I was literally like ‘No, this isn’t real’. I couldn’t take it in.”
Speaking exclusively to Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes for this week’s High Performance podcast podcast (out on Thursday) George says he would tell young stars, like Liam, who are thrust into the limelight: “Get some therapy before you need it.
“I probably wouldn’t have done a lot of the things that I did had I had someone to talk to. If I’d had someone to teach me some philosophy, open my mind up about what I was capable of.”
But George realises that comments he posted on social media shortly before Liam’s death now seem insensitive.
He explains:”In the case of Liam Payne, I’d watched him a few days before it happened. I remember watching online and I’d actually put a message under a post saying ‘he’s off his nut’, which wasn’t very nice, but I felt it. I felt like he was out of control.
“And when it happened, it just hit me, the same way that Amy Winehouse hit me, because it felt so senseless.”
George and Liam had a Twitter spat after the 2013 BRIT Awards, which Liam attended with his young niece. The Culture Club star accused him of refusing to pose for a picture with her, also blaming the star’s minder. In return, Liam said George had got his name wrong three times, before asking him ‘Where is Liam?’ when he actually meant Niall (Horan) his One Direction band mate.
The pair once rowed on Twitter
But George was horrified when he heard of Liam’s tragic death last month, when he fell from a hotel balcony in Argentina and was found to have traces of drugs in his body.
He posted on X: “How sad is the death of Liam Payne. Just awful news to wake up to. God bless his family. I am absolutely shocked. R.I.P.”
Dismayed to have received some negative comments in response to his post, George tells the podcast: “I care about his family. I watched the dad, heartbreaking. I was quite tearful about it. I actually really felt very sad.”
George has spoken frankly about his own struggles with drugs.
After forming Culture Club, aged 20, in 1981, and enjoying hits including Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, his addiction spiralled out of control.
After on-off problems with substance abuse, in 2008, he was convicted and jailed for assault and false imprisonment of Audun Carlsen, a Norwegian model and male escort – citing his long-term drug use as a mitigating factor in his defence.
Jailed for 15 months, he was given early release after four months and has since turned his life around – enjoying success as a solo artist, as well as DJing, being a mentor on The Voice and appearing on I’m a Celebrity. He has also branched out into photography, cookery writing and fashion design.
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But, the untimely death of stars like Liam and Amy Winehouse are a poignant reminder of his own rock bottoms.
He says: “There’s that saying ‘there but for the grace of God’. You think there’s so many times when I could have come to a sticky end myself. I’m really aware of that. “ But I don’t want to make what happened to Liam about myself, it’s very separate.
“There are things about rock ‘n’ roll that are cliches.
“Even growing up, even though I knew about Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, and all the others, Brian Jones and all these people, I knew what they went through, you don’t really think about that when you’re a kid. You don’t take that into account, unless you’re smart. Every famous person thinks ‘don’t worry I’ve got this’. They all think it.
“When I meet people who have never done drugs I want to hug them. I’m always like ‘well done’.
“All that stuff is like a game of Russian Roulette.”
George’s admissions come in the same week as Robbie Williams responded to former Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith’s claims in a BBC documentary Boybands Forever that the singer blamed him for his drug taking.
Williams defended himself on Instagram, saying: “I will also remind you that the person acting like a w****r was 16 when he joined the band and 21 when he left.”
And he urged Martin-Smith to take some responsibility for what happened to the band members.
Recalling what happened to his fellow Take That bandmates, he said: “Howard – contemplated suicide when the band ended. Mark – addiction, alcoholism and rehab. Gaz – bulimia. Me – I think that one is well documented. And Jason – whatever effect Take That had on him is so painful he can’t even be part of it.”
While Robbie conceded that his addiction would most likely have happened whether he was in a boyband or not, he addressed Martin-Smith by writing: “No one is going to sue you for not knowing or understanding the psychological effects everything was having on everyone.”
Meanwhile, Boy George, who says he is in a good place now, is an enthusiastic follower of Nichiren Buddhism and credits it with giving him newfound spiritual strength, which helps him to stay clean and sober.
And he would like to encourage other people in the public eye to follow a spiritual path.
He says: “I do try to tell people.
“When you start talking about spiritual things people glaze over. People don’t understand what they’re capable of, by just changing the way they think about things.
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