You first came into my life in 1984, when I was an overweight 13-year-old in neon laces and suspenders living in a small Ontario city. Back then, I felt trapped. The ideas I had for myself, the life I yearned for? They never fit with my reality. I couldn’t find a home for who I was.
But then you and your frothy, short-shorts brand of pop bounced across my TV screen. A door to my interior world cracked open. You and fellow WHAM!-member Andrew Ridgeley had both ears pierced – something considered taboo. Boys could just have one ear pierced, and only the left one, and never the right: that meant a boy was gay. Thirty-two years later, I still recall discussing the double earrings with a classmate who said, “They don’t care if anyone thinks they’re fags.” If that was true – and, really, how could she know? – I wondered how it was possible for anyone to be strong enough to not care what people thought.
I was in high school in 1987 when your solo album Faith came out, bringing with it the controversy of I Want Your Sex, the black-and-white moodiness of Father Figure and the landscaped facial hair that I never quite succeeded at copying. I had to be cautious about my love for you. People were suspicious, despite the beautiful women in your videos, the meticulous hyper-machismo and the aviator sunglasses that hid your eyes. I got the sense that you were very much in control of your image, and if you let things slip, even for a minute, it could all come crashing down. Within my suffocating high school walls, I understood this.
When Listen Without Prejudice was released in 1990, I was in the beginning stages of coming out. That album and its coded lyrics (“And all these games that you play, don’t tell me how a man should be. Some would say if you knew, you wouldn’t be here with me”), revealed a secret language. It felt like we were both giving shape to things, trying to create some sense of structure. And then there was your withdrawal from the spotlight. At the height of your fame, you turned your back on it. This was something I also understood. In solitude, away from the world’s eyes, you could be who you wanted to be, without the fear of judgment or exposure.
After that, your musical output became sporadic. You were embattled with your record label. The Older LP arrived in 1996, but we disconnected. I was fully out by then and more demanding of you. I grew frustrated with your ambiguous lyrics. Why couldn’t you just say “he?” Why were you so reluctant to finally confirm what I’d known, what many of us had known, since your early days with WHAM!?
It was your restroom arrest in 1998 that brought it all out. I was disappointed in you. I’d been wanting the cover of People, the good news story, the announcement that you were happily in love. I wanted the counterbalance to the negative stories in the press. But that didn’t happen. And you never apologized. Instead of taking the Hugh Grant route, you told everyone to get on with their lives.
As the years wore on, you and I lost touch. I’d play Everything She Wants and feel a tug of nostalgia, realizing how far – and not so far – the fat kid in neon laces had come. I paid less attention to you, perhaps because I needed you less. And it was stupid to harbour teenaged crushes, especially when I was well on my way towards middle age.
But then you died this past Christmas Day. Friends from high school texted me, saying I was the first person that came to mind when they heard the news. Was I okay? I was fine, I told them. Yes, it was sad, but you had been troubled for some time now. Besides, it was Christmas and there were presents to open, meals to eat and who had time to think about it?
But my mind kept circling back to you in the days following. I thought about what you had meant to me, and still mean to me, all these years later. And I found myself sadder than I’d ever care to admit.
Part of that sadness comes from saying goodbye to the idea of you, the music star who had shown me, at an early age, that there was difference in the world, even if it opened you up to speculation. At least you were being yourself.
Part of that sadness is rooted in the realization that so many pop stars of the ‘80s (Whitney Houston, Prince, Michael Jackson), were gone too, self-destructed. I can’t help but feel like I contributed to that destruction and that the things I once desperately wanted – fame, acceptance, a roaring crowd – were precisely the things that could cause someone to drown.
Part of that sadness is losing your talent: your voice, your songwriting, your artistry. If someone hasn’t seen this clip of you singing Freedom ’90 live, I highly recommend it. This kind of raw performance is sadly lacking among today’s pop stars:
But I think most of my sadness comes from the realization that you were me. Or, at least, had been a mirror image. Of my lies and my fears. Of my cowering behind a shadow of stubble. Of my impulse to run to the spotlight and then run away just as quickly. I was afraid of who I was. That I’d be held back before I had a chance to let myself go. Maybe you felt the same way. But who knows? I never met you. I never knew you.
Whatever the naysayers say about you, George, that you were a has-been, an addict, that your death, alone, on Christmas morning, was a tragic end, I know differently. I know your worth. What you meant, not just to me, but to a whole generation of misplaced kids who were looking for an open door.
You were there when we needed you. And you’ll continue to be there as a defining person in our lives.
Singing, dancing in your short-shorts, and never seeming to care.
Brian Francis's debut novel, Fruit, was a finalist in 2009's Canada Reads competition.