Boy George sent “tirades of love and worship” to David Bowie via email
Boy George has recalled sending “tirades of love and worship” to David Bowie via email.
During the first episode of The Lulu Podcast: Turning Points, the soloist and former Culture Club frontman looked back on being a huge fan of the late icon in his younger years. This came after Lulu said that “people looked at [her] differently” after she worked with Bowie.
“Because I think Bowie was one of those people that if he liked you, it was like, ‘Oh I’m absolutely cool, don’t even try to consider that I’m not’,” George responded.
The singer then remembered “bunking off school to go and see Bowie coming back from Berlin” to London in 1976.
George said: “There’s a photo of me at Victoria station when I was 14 that I found recently […] He arrived at Victoria station in the big sort of Cadillac, and I remember being photographed and I remember thinking, ‘I might get in trouble because I’m being photographed. What if my mum sees it?’
“So I recently saw [the photo] and it’s mindblowing.” You can see the image in the post below.
George went on to say that he “used to send [Bowie] emails” when he was older and had met the star. “I’d send these tirades of love and worship, and I’d get like a line back,” he explained. The two artists also spoke on the phone.
The singer, who has cited Bowie as one of his biggest influences, recalled first seeing the legendary artist live when he was 11 in the early ’70s.
“I used to sit outside his house,” George admitted. “There’s a famous story about [Bowie’s ex-wife] Angie opening the window and telling us to fuck off. She opened the window and goes, ‘Would you just fuck off!'”
You can listen to the podcast in full above.
In 2020, George revealed in an interview with NME that Bowie had once congratulated him for winning Stars In Their Eyes, where he impersonated the late icon.
“I won Stars In Their Eyes twice as Bowie, which is another thing my manager was like: ‘Who the fuck told you to do that?!’,” he said.
“When I had dinner with Bowie in 2005 in New York, he said to me: ‘Oh, I hear you won Stars In Their Eyes?’. And I looked at him and went: ‘No, I didn’t win once – I won twice’, to which he replied: ‘Good boy – I would expect nothing less!’.”
George added: “The second time I won, I took it seriously and worked with a vocal coach.”
In other news, a special edition of Bowie‘s ‘Ready, Set, Go!’ live album is set to be released for this year’s Record Story Day. Meanwhile, his former collaborators D.A.M. Trio will reunite for a ‘Back To Berlin’ UK and European tour in 2025.
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Tom Skinner
NME
