I think you do things in your own time. My family knew I was gay when I was 15, long before I got famous. But it’s a very different thing coming out to your family and coming out to the universe. That’s a big step. Maybe without me, there wouldn’t be Adam Lambert. Without Bowie, there wouldn’t be me. Without Quentin Crisp, there wouldn’t have been Bowie. So everything is part of a big daisy chain. A lot of people come up to me all the time and say thank you for helping me be who I am. So my thing wasn’t just about sexuality. It was about anyone who felt different; anyone who felt out of place. Being gay was one part of it.
—Boy George, on whether he wishes he came out earlier in his career, a la Adam Lambert [via]
Right Wingers Are Socioptahs (John From England)
He’s right.
The Artist
I love George’s music, but honestly did any NOT think the man was family? PEACELUVNBWILD!
orpheus_lost
He wasn’t out? How in the Hell was he not out?
Cam
I actually remember reading an article where other members of the group were talking about how tough he was and that he dated women and they thought that the rumors about he and tehd rummer were funny. Even as a child it sounded phony lol
gregger
Please, how could he not have been out? Making out with men on the dance floor of Heaven in London in front of media while in drag, please………
Berto
Finally, I know who to blame for Adam Lambert.
Shannon1981
Hmmm I didn’t realize he was in any closet, but ok.Happy Coming Out, then. At any rate I think he’s awesome, and I also thank him for Adam Lambert in this ‘daisy chain’ as he calls it.
Sapphocrat
@Cam: We probably read the same article. I think it was Jon Moss (not sure, but I think) who, when asked directly if Boy was gay, said something like, “Oh, no, he’s one of the most masculine men I know.” I hated the implication of that.
BlogShag
Ewww. 20 something odd years later and this guy still makes me gag. I’m not into people who think forcible and false imprisonment is cute. And by the way, the make up don’t help your looks any “honey” – never has
GeriHew
Boy George was in a relationship with his drummer Jon Moss. Moss had never been in a same-sex relationship before and wasn’t prepared to be open about being bisexual, and he also frequently cheated on Boy with Culture Club’s female fans. Not surprisingly it was a very tempestuous relationship which caused a lot of friction in the band. Boy had a lot of female fans back then who wanted to bed him too. I don’t think many of those girls thought he was straight – they probably hoped he was bi like Bowie and Bolan or like Pete Burns and Steve Strange.
Tommy
Boy George is very masculine, so Jon Moss or whoever said that wasn’t lying. George is a tough nut. He’s likely to punch in you in the face if you say something he doesn’t like. Gay men can be very masculine, and George despite all the makeup is very butch.
Are people still attacking Jon Moss for that relationship all those years ago? George has said he’s over that and they’re friends now. People should leave Jon alone. From what I read, he did cheat but it wasn’t with fans, it was with women he knew. Is Jon Moss the first person in the history of the world to cheat on his partner? George cheated during their relationship too with other guys. If Jon Moss didn’t want to be open with the media that was his right. The way Jon Moss has been singled out for attack by some Boy George fans is disgusting. Jon wasn’t a monster and George wasn’t so sweet and innocent.
GeriHew
@Tommy: I wasn’t attacking Jon Moss.
Tommy
@GeriHew
It seemed to me you were. Rehashing allegations of cheating and not being open about a relationship sounds like an attack to me. George never even mentioned Jon Moss’ name in this interview so why bring it up? Their relationship is their business. And really only the two of them no what happened. Would you like all your relationships put under the microscope and having strangers comment on them. I don’t think so.
GeriHew
@Tommy: I mentioned Jon Moss because George was in a relationship with him for about six years – including the whole time they were in Culture Club together in the 1980s. They were not entirely secretive about it (they kissed and cuddled each other in public occasionally and sometimes even held hands) but they were not open about actually being lovers either. If they had been the media would have been all over it. There was a lot of speculation about George’s sexuality at the time. At the hieght of Culture Club’s success in America he was presenting himself as pretty much asexual with his famous “I prefer a nice cup of tea to sex” remarks.
When their relationship fell apart the band split up and George descended into drug addicited hell. I’m not “blaming” Jon for all this but that is basically what happened.
George opened up about his sexual relationships in his 1995 autobiograpy – Take It Like A Man. And this was the first real public confirmation that he and Moss had been lovers. To his credit Jon Moss (now a father and married to a woman) did not deny it but he did claim that George was misleading about him not being comfortable in a same sex relationship and wanting to keep it secret. He said his parents and family friends knew about it at the time. However he’d never spoken so openly about their relationship before and if George hadn’t have written about it he would probably have been perfectly happy to keep it quiet. He also described George as an ex-wife.
George’s previous mostly straight lover Kirk Brandon (also married with children by this time) was not nearly so cool about being outed in the book however and took George to the High Court claimng that George was lying about their sexual relationship and that they had only shared a bed a few times for sleeping only. George had said they had sex a 100 + times. Brandon lost the case and the Court found that George was basically telling the truth.
It was clear that Brandon had not told his wife about the sexual relationship with George and that she was furious about the revelations in the book. I suspect that Moss had either been more open with his wife beforehand or that she was simply more accepting of his certain degree of bisexuality.
It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the two great loves of George’s youth were straight leaning bi men. George was very girly and pretty back then and he dressed very feminine all the time, not just when he was performing.
George has since expressed regret about how he had written about Jon in his book – as in should have kept a lot of it to himself.