Some of the biggest pop stars of the past and present are getting read to filth by Boy George.
The Culture Club frontman is spilling the tea on his past interactions with fellow celebrities in his new memoir Karma and hitmakers like Janet Jackson, Adele and Prince are not getting away unscathed.
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Janet Jackson
The 62-year-old recounts having three rude encounters with Janet Jackson over the course of his forty-year career.
The bad blood started while backstage on the ’80s TV series Solid Gold when George approached the “Control” singer without wearing any makeup and professed what a big fan he was of her music.
“She wasn’t friendly and didn’t try to be,” he writes, according to People. “But I just walked off and got myself into my best ‘Boy George’ and was walking around backstage to make sure I was seen by everyone.”
When one of Jackson’s entourage asked him to record a video message for her, George didn’t hold back. “Next time you meet someone, be nice,” he recalled saying to the camera.
After George’s blunt message got back to Jackson, she “summoned” him to her dressing room and explained she hadn’t recognized him without his makeup. But that only ticked George off more.
“I said, ‘That makes it worse. Are you saying you would have been nice to me if you knew who I was? What if I’m just a fan?’” he writes, per Page Six. “We parted on awkward terms.”
The situation only compounded over the next several decades.
George claims Jackson “looked straight through me” while on the British series Top of the Pops and kept her back to him during his performance at the 2019 British Fashion Awards.
The “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” crooner had slightly nicer things to say about late music legend Prince. The pair met for the first time in the ’90s at a Paris restaurant after the “When Doves Cry” singer called George to his table where he was sitting with then-wife Mayte Garcia.
Things quickly got very awkward.
“Then he didn’t speak for ten minutes,” George writes.
“A plate of carbonara arrived for the wife and Prince started feeding her. I’m thinking, ‘What planet are you on, baby?’ The arrival of the carbonara gave me the perfect excuse to say goodbye.”
Even beloved songstress Adele managed to ruffle George’s prickly feathers.
After paying to see the “Hello” diva’s Las Vegas residency, George claims he was snubbed because she didn’t greet him after the show, per Page Six.
Instead, George writes how she sent over a “beautifully signed tour program saying, ‘I can’t believe you are here,’ but she did not meet me. I thought was odd.”
Tina Turner & Princess Diana
While promoting his memoir, George also disclosed getting the cold shoulder from Tina Turner, although he didn’t include it in the book.
“She wasn’t nice to me, which was the shame,” he told People of the episode which occurred alongside Elton John and Faye Dunaway. “It was a lot of big stars in the room. And it was a tiny room. And when Elton John introduced me, [Tina] turned her back.”
George never found out why Turner, who passed away in 2023 at the age of 83, snubbed him, but he didn’t hold a grudge. “I’m the biggest Tina Turner fan on the planet,” he told the outlet. “I mean, I forgave her and I loved her.”
But George isn’t just spewing fire and brimstone and recalls receiving an act of kindness from Princess Diana at an event in the ’80s following his recovery from drug addiction.
“My reputation was ragged,” he writes, per People. After being “shooed away” by a palace official, Princess Diana “broke protocol and approached me.”
After complimenting his outfit, Diana agreed to meet George’s mother who had accompanied him to the event. “They spent 10 minutes chatting,” he shares. “She told Mum I was a true survivor.”
Despite his pointed words at his contemporaries, George says he has nothing but love for the people he has written about.
“I suppose when you write things about other artists, it’s also — note to self — you remember that perhaps there’s been times in your life when you weren’t friendly to everyone you met,” George told People.
“It’s 1000% easier to be nice. Not only is it easier to be nice as it’s better for you.”
Karma: My Autobiography is available in stores now.
