Digital Trends talks to author James Gavin about GeorgeMichael: A Life and how the biography sheds a new light on the 1980s pop star.
The 1980s produced a plethora of memorable pop stars: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, and countless others. Most are still remembered today while some have been long forgotten. And then there’s George Michael, who is remembered but usually for the wrong reasons: his drug use, his well-documented arrest in a public bathroom, his subsequent outing by the press, and health problems at the end of his life.
You’ve written biographies of Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, and Chet Baker. What was different about researching and writing this biography than those previous ones? People who knew George mistrusted me from the beginning, and it took a long time to start gaining their trust. About two years into the project, most of the “no’s” turned into “yeses.” And by the end of the book, I had interviewed well over 200 people and accessed well over 2,000 articles. I knew that I was in a position to tell George’s story more truthfully than anybody ever had.Oh, God, yes.
I cannot stress enough how scary that decision was for people of George Michael’s generation because you really thought that you might lose everything if people knew that you were gay. That’s why the Older album was a breakthrough for him because he was more open about his pain and struggle with living a closeted life.
One of the surprising things I discovered by reading about it was how meticulous and controlling he was of the George Michael image, both in creating and destroying it. For you, what was the most surprising thing you discovered while researching and writing this book?
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