14 JUIN 1961

At one point it didn’t seem as if Boy George would make it much past his 25th birthday. Yet here he is, about to celebrate his 50th next Tuesday, and the transformation from the boy pop star to man seems astonishing.

No one could be more pleased than me. George and I have a long history, from the days  when, as a newspaper reporter, I used to follow him on the club and music scenes. In the early 1990s I helped him write his autobiography Take It Like A Man. We’ve been through a lot together. 

The book took four-and-a-half years, with much shouting and screaming, mostly from him at me, and moments where he’d crack me up so much I could hardly stand up.

I remind him he sacked me once — for not being gay. We both have a laugh about it.

We are in the Victorian Gothic home in London’s Hampstead where we worked together all those years ago and where George still lives. Today it’s a scene of cosy domesticity as his sister Siobhan vacuums and his brother Kevin does some office work in the kitchen. The house is full of religious icons and paintings. 

In contrast to the way he’s normally seen in public, in a colourful Philip Treacy brimmed hat and heavy make-up,  George  is scrubbed clean. He’s wearing a black T-shirt with jet beading, his arms are tattooed. He’s fit, 4st lighter, and intends losing more with the help of a near-vegan diet, a personal trainer and regular workouts. He is mercifully free of all nasty substances, both legal and illegal.

‘The young me was quite belligerent and self-destructive,’ he says.

‘Unfortunately, people know me recently for lots of drama. For being arrested and going to prison.  I’ve got my work cut out to remind them what I actually do.

‘I am very focused on what I do now, and in time I’ll stop being referred to as . . .’ 

He trails off, not wanting even to articulate the negative image he’s been known for. 

‘But there was a point before, and there’ll be a point in the future, where people will get bored with that.’

In his heyday: Boy George in his Culture Club days

He’s busier than he’s ever been. The strange creature who we first got to know with his dreadlocks, flouncing robes and Hasidic Jewish hat, swaying to the reggae beat of Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? on Top Of The Pops in 1982, has become a sought-after DJ, producer, songwriter and performer. 

There are hopes of soon working with top producer Mark Ronson on a record with a reunited Culture Club, and an arena world tour next year.

Along the way, George has been to prison in this country and sentenced to community service in the U.S. Both are experiences which he has not spoken about before, but he can now reveal the positive effect they have had. 

He recalls the exact date — March 2, 2008 — when he at last became drug and  alcohol-free. The final marker on his clean-up voyage was six weeks ago, when he gave up cigarettes. 

He’s more energetic and upbeat than I have ever known him. ‘Maybe it’s having more oxygen and being able to breathe properly’, he says. He’s suffered from asthma all his life. 

‘I wish I’d done all this 20 years ago. I wish I’d gone running with Madonna when she asked me 20 years ago. I used to say: “I only run when people chase me.” But I get it now.

‘I wanted to give up all the self-medicating things I was doing. I remember saying: “I won’t be like this at 40.” But I was. In fact, it got worse.’

Cleaning up his act: Boy George was ordered to spend five days doing community service

Becoming sober was a precursor to a more profound spiritual awakening just before he was sentenced to 15 months in 2009 for false imprisonment of a male escort. 

‘It was a major epiphany. I’d been waiting to go for trial for almost a year. I was thinking a lot about what was going on in my life, thinking: “Come on, I need more than this.” ’

The significance was that George realised he could take control. 

‘The night before I went for sentencing, my mum and I listened to Antony And The Johnsons’ song Hope There’s Someone, and she started weeping. I said: “Mum, I’m going to be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll get through.”

You have to keep it together for the people who love you because they’re more freaked out than you are. 

‘I was able to get through it by telling myself the person being prosecuted and going to prison wasn’t me, it was him,’ and he points somewhere across his spacious living room. ‘It was that person I was a few months ago. I had to say to myself: “This is not who you are any more.”

‘When I went to prison, people who I’d known for a long time but thought were peripheral acquaintances really stepped up their support and wrote to me, as well as people I didn’t know. It was overwhelming and sweet.

‘There’s something great about this country. I just think it’s the most civilised in the world, even when you get arrested. At least there’s a grain of humanity with the police here; in other countries, there’s no love. Britain is the best place to get arrested,’ he laughs.

Taking the stand: The singer, who stood trial for assaulting and falsely imprisoning a male escort, says prison was an epiphany

‘My life hasn’t always been a disaster, it’s just that when it has, it’s been a spectacular disaster. I’ve never done it by half measures. All the worst possible things that could have happened, happened to me: being arrested in America was one of my worst nightmares.’

In 2003 George moved to New York for three years when his musical Taboo was on Broadway. He was cut adrift from his protective family. He pleaded guilty in a New York court to falsely reporting a burglary after charges of drugs possession were dropped, was sentenced to a community service order and swept the streets of Manhattan with the world’s media looking on.

‘I would have said once that going to prison would finish me off, and it didn’t. It’s amazing how resilient you can be. Sometimes you surprise yourself with what you can handle, and if you come out the other end with some wisdom, then it’s not such a bad thing.

‘I’ve never been a bad person and always had quite good morals. There’s always been a side of me that’s been quite proper, but it’s got distracted here and there. Now, I’m the person I should be.

‘I cherish the moderate life now: I don’t want drama or complication.  

‘I split up with someone recently. It hadn’t been a serious or passionate relationship, but it was providing everything I needed, and when that person went out of my life, I didn’t fall apart.’

Clean-living: Boy George has dropped all of the legal and illegal substances, including cigarettes

He’s sounding surprised at himself.

‘I sent him a few texts, but I didn’t go to where he lived or find out who his girlfriend was. [George has a history of going out with ‘straight’ men.] In the past, I absolutely would have done and wanted to smash his windows. But I thought: “All right, he doesn’t want to see me. Well, that’s his loss.”

‘I’m now single and I’m happy about it. If someone comes along, perfect. But whoever dates me has got to be pretty spectacular and grounded because I come with a lot of baggage — though a lot of it’s imagined. But I love my own company, too.’

When someone asked him recently ‘Knowing what you know now, would you recommend fame?’, he replied: ‘I’d love to be able to experience all that I did with the knowledge I’ve got now.’

George has some pertinent observations on today’s biggest pop star, Lady Gaga, who George believes is heading for a fall: ‘It’s a drama waiting to unfold. Fame is the impending glittering disaster!’

But one old adversary he is now close to is George Michael.

‘I was talking to him recently and I said: “You know, we have a lot more in common than we haven’t.” ’ George is laughing, and though he doesn’t say it, he means they both have form.

‘When I do these Here And Now tours, I’m working with a lot of other 1980s acts I wouldn’t have spoken to or I’d have sneered at in the past. Then you grow up and realise you aren’t in competition with anybody, it’s not a battle and it doesn’t matter.’

One relationship that was impaired was with his father Gerry, a builder.

After his father left his mother and remarried, George did not speak to him for two years.

Back on track: The singer has a healthier perspective on life and has dropped his other 'belligerent' self

Gerry died in September 2004. I wonder if George achieved peace with his father before the end. ‘I always loved my dad,’ he says. ‘The last time I spoke to him was on September 11, 2001, when the planes hit the twin towers. I was in Ibiza. I’d just been in America on tour. My dad knew I was on a lot of those routes. 

‘I hadn’t spoken to him since he left my mother, when we had a massive row. When he called me in Ibiza, I had a fantastic conversation with him. I was watching the twin towers and crying and the phone went. We had a really great conversation.’

He always meant to phone his dad again when he got home, but ‘then he was gone’. 

‘When you lose someone, you tend to rewrite history. I think about all the great things about my dad, little things like him singing in the car. Funny stuff, rather than all the turmoil. I think that’s a good thing.

‘The funeral was arranged by his new wife,’ he says. Neither George nor his mother attended, but his mum did arrange a service at the local church and laid a plaque. ‘My mum is such an amazing woman. On the day, I thought: “You are so incredible. Even after everything my dad put you through, you’re still respecting him.” ’

George’s family have been his bedrock and he admits that without them, he may not have survived. 

‘In the past, if someone were to ask me if I had any regrets, I would have said absolutely none. I would have been so defiant. Now, I can actually say that I do have lots of regrets. 

‘They don’t inform my every waking hour and I know that regrets don’t change anything. But I think it’s good to be aware of what you’ve done and just say: “You know, I don’t want to do that again.” ’

The Here And Now tour  (here-and-now.info) starts on June 17.

The single Sunshine Into My Life by Funkysober featuring Sharlene Hector, written and produced by Boy George, is out now on his own label, VG Records.

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