When George Michael was a child, he hated the Greek songs his father Jack listened to. Jack is a Greek Cypriot. His real name is Kyriakos Panagiotou. He was a poor man who, at the age of 17, left Patriki, a village near Famagusta, in 1953 for London. Tall, smart, loud, he started working in restaurants. He married Englishwoman Leslie Harrison, they opened their own restaurant, they had three children, Yoda, Melanie and George. Like any Greek father, Jack appointed his only son, Giorgos-Kyriakos, the little Yogi, as his successor.

The crown prince, born on June 25, 1963, did not have the tomboyishness that fathers of that time expected from their boys from the cradle. She was effeminate, and that worried Jack. He forcibly took him to study boxing, but to no avail. It wasn’t that George wasn’t trying to be the kind of son his father wanted him to be. At 12, he lost his virginity to a girl. As he later said, the experience was so disturbing that he no longer had sex until the age of 16, when he ended up in “dens”. Jack was not naive. He saw and understood. Every three or so, he threw homophobic slurs. “What; Do you like pop? They’re all f…s!”

Giorgos-Kyriakos was very fond of pop. He did not like Tsitsanis, Kazantzidis and Panos Gavalas, whom his father played on the record player. He learned some Greek. But are there Greek motifs hidden in the music he wrote later? Let’s focus on his childhood for now. Among other things, he did not miss the tree. It was the father’s punishment for his misdeeds.

All of this is mentioned in George Michael’s extensive biography of American James Gavin called The Life, and it’s enough to convince us that one of the biggest pop stars of our time grew up with a traditional Greek father. His childhood imprinted in him a sense of guilt and self-hatred, but also a deep desire to receive, through the admiration of others, something akin to fatherly love. This psychic material fueled his ambition, but as the decades passed, it became a brake that pulled him towards self-destruction. “What makes you a star is everything you lack,” he said in 1998. “These are all the feelings you get when you feel like you’re not worth something.”

His father may have told him when he was young, “You can’t sing, stop doing it,” but once he saw himself as a superstar with the band he formed, Wham!, he wasn’t stingy with praise. Fifteen years later, in 1998, George was caught in a Beverly Hills public restroom. A few hours later, cameras gathered outside his house to film him walking out the door. What worried him most was what his father would say. When Jack turned on the TV and saw his baby’s home being shown live on the news, he called him and said, “Come out and tell them to leave with…”. George skillfully dealt with the scandal. The single “Outside” was released. The song combines self-mockery and identity recognition with a satire on sexual control.

Let’s go back to 1978. Jack, despite all the bullshit he said, allowed his son to rehearse at home with Andrew Ridgeley, the guy who became the other half of Wham!. Andrew was the opposite of George. He had no talent, but he didn’t burn his nail. He wanted to be a star, and he will be a star if the world falls apart. They met in 1975 at school in Bushey, Hertfordshire, a small town on the outskirts of northwest London, where Panagiota had moved. George was 12 years old and had a hard time in his new environment. The teachers enlisted a peer, Andrew, who was kind and confident, to help the newcomer adjust. In 1981 they formed Wham! and in 1983 they had a worldwide hit with “Club Tropicana”.

On Christmas Day 1984 “Last Christmas” was released, a hit that climbed to No. 2 in the UK and has been played non-stop every Christmas ever since. At Christmas 2021, it not only still sounded, but also took first place!

“What makes you a star is everything you lack,” he said in 1998. “These are all the feelings you get when you feel like you’re not worth something.”

When George became famous, he dated Pat Fernandez, who worked as an assistant to Boy George. They went to the trendy clubs in London. Pat knew about George, but that didn’t stop her from truly falling in love with him. George didn’t answer. Romance was only for the eyes of the world. At a time when even Elton John was married to a woman (divorced in 1988), who can blame a child for an affair? Somehow, with different girls by his side, time passed. In 1985 Wham! they became the first Western group to appear in China and then disband.

George started his solo career. In 1987, the Faith album was released with the single “I Want your sex”, which was initially played by BBC Radio 1 only in the evening hours due to provocative lyrics. Vera’s sales exceeded 25 million. At a time when pornography, intimate self-portraits, and the toaster weren’t on the phones the way they are today, pop artists had the exclusive privilege of making up little sex stories and turning MTV blood on fire. The music videos were Tik Tok from the 80s.

In 1990 “Listen Without Prejudice Vol1” was released, and in 1996 – Older with the famous “Jesus to the Child”. He wanted to be taken as a serious songwriter, and he succeeded, but he was marked by two losses: first by his partner Anselmo Philippa, who died of AIDS in 1993, and then by his mother in 1997. His work was stifled by money and flattery. and alcohol and drug addiction undermined his health. He became almost bipolar. When he shone in his public appearances and when he hid in one of his houses. The conflict with Sony lasted for years. He turned down those harrowing world tours and didn’t write any new songs.

After 2000, every three or so cops stopped him in parks and on the highway for driving high and high at dawn. When he appeared at the Olympic Stadium in Athens in July 2007, he was moved by the apotheosis we had prepared for him, but the program lasted no more than an hour. At 45, he did not have much strength to thresh on stage with Vera and Svoboda. Among the spectators were his father and sisters.

Like his beloved mother, George died on Christmas Day 2016 at the age of 53. The night before, he had a fight with his friend, fell asleep and did not wake up. The funeral took place three months later, the testimony dragged on. His fortune was estimated at over £100 million and his last two partners, Kenny Goss and Fadi Fawaz, the last person to see him alive, claimed a share. We received little.

The cause of death has not yet been determined, but everything indicates that it was a convulsive seizure. He was overweight, he drank a lot, and his heart was probably too stressed to handle it.

The work of a pop star belongs to difficult and unhealthy professions, no matter how far-fetched it may sound. Three years later, again on Christmas Day, his sister Melanie died. She lived in a house left to her by her brother in Hampstead, London. They say she got rid of suffering. He never recovered from George’s death. Of the entire family, only his father and older sister Yoda survived.

Songs written by the shy Yogi, the charismatic George Michael, still sound today. A few years ago, two English music producers went to eat at a Greek restaurant in London and heard a melancholic travel ballad. They said they heard a balalaika, but it was probably a clarinet. They have been moved. It reminded them of the saxophone theme from Careless Whisper. “That inspired George,” they said afterwards. Maybe. The little Yogi did not like his father’s folk songs, but listened to them willy-nilly. Perhaps one of them became the leaven for this work. For “Careless Whisper”, which has been going through the centuries for forty years and is constantly heard from players and players to applications and mobile phones.