Sunglasses + Dog's arse = Boy George!

[nekokate]

Sunglasses + Dog's arse = Boy George!!!!



Do you really want to huuuuuurt meeee???!

[faceless]

I was chained to the wall and beaten by 'evil' Boy George, claims male escort
Daniel Bates
24th November 2008

Boy George chained up a male escort and beat him in a revenge attack, a court heard. Audun Carlsen, 29, told how the former Culture Club singer pinned him to the floor of his bedroom, beat him up, swore at him, then handcuffed him to a hook next to his bed. George produced a box of sex toys, chains and leather straps but the escort, originally from Norway, managed to pull his hand free and ran for the door. As he grappled with the lock, George allegedly struck him on the head and back with one of the metal chains, leaving him bloodied and bruised. Fighting back tears, Mr Carlsen told Snaresbrook Crown Court yesterday: 'I don't understand why someone could be so evil. I would never have consented to that. I would never have been chained up.'

The jury was told the 47-year-old singer, real name George O'Dowd, met Mr Carlsen through the gay dating website Gaydar. George messaged Mr Carlsen in January last year and told him he would pay him £400 to come to his flat for a photo shoot. The singer took pictures of Mr Carlsen and they both took cocaine, the court heard. However, Mr Carlsen left under a cloud after George accused him of tampering with his computer.

But on April 27 last year Mr Carlsen again went to the flat in Shoreditch, East London, for a photo shoot at midnight. He was clear in his mind that there would be nothing more between the two men, the court heard. After the shoot, he was sitting on the sofa in his boxer shorts and trainers when the singer called him into his bedroom.

With his head shaven, Boy George's distinctive star-shaped tattoo could be seen

'George was standing just in front of the door and this other man was standing on his right-hand side. As soon as I got eye contact they were both jumping on me. They held me down and beat me. George was holding and slapping me and beating and punching me and screaming things. He was slapping my chest and my face. He was screaming things like, "Now you're gonna get what you deserve". I was dragged on the floor towards the bedroom and they handcuffed my right hand. He was screaming things at me.' Mr Carlsen said he asked George, 'Why are you doing this to me?', but was given no explanation. 'George was very angry. His face, I can't get it out of my head. It looked mad.'

Both men left the room - and George returned soon afterwards carrying a box of chains and straps. But Mr Carlsen managed to unscrew the hook and fled. 'It took me time to get the door open. He had a metal chain that he was hitting me with, he had so many chains lying around. The chains hit me on my head and my back. He tried to stop me but I managed to run out.' By now, it was 6am and Mr Carlsen's cries for help were heard by a newsagent, who phoned the police.

Prosecutor Heather Norton said George had wanted to check if he was the person who had tampered with his computer. And in an apparent reference to a Culture Club hit from the Eighties, she asked the jury: 'Did he really have to hurt him?' Before the band split, they had Number Ones including Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?

The trial continues.

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Did he really want to maaaaake him cry?

[nekokate]

Why the heck does he have a Star of David on his bonce??? He's one weird dog's arse of a person.

[Brown Sauce]

he used to use our pub back in the day, in the peoples republic of Walsall, and wouldn't speak to me 'cause I had long hair ...

[faceless]

He's got to do some time for this - I wonder how much?

[faceless]

'Drug-crazed idiot' Boy George jailed for 15 months for chaining male escort to wall and beating him
Matthew Drake
17th January 2009

Boy George was jailed for 15 months yesterday for falsely imprisoning a male escort. The former Culture Club singer - real name George O'Dowd - shackled Audun Carlsen to a wall of his flat and lashed him with a chain while shouting insults at him. The 29-year-old Norwegian managed to free himself and fled in his underpants into the street, screaming for help.

In court yesterday, O'Dowd's own barrister admitted that his client's career had hit rock bottom and likened the behaviour of the two men to 'two drug-crazed idiots'. Adrian Waterman added that the cost of the incident would be 'truly enormous', adding: 'He will not now very likely ever be permitted to perform in the U.S and Japan where he has a very, very significant fan base. The humiliation of this is going to live with him for ever.' The singer's defence team also said he would struggle to raise the £5,000 he has been ordered to pay in costs.

O'Dowd was convicted of false imprisonment last year. Yesterday he was sentenced by Judge David Radford, who told him he had been guilty of 'gratuitous violence'. Condemning his 'premeditated', ' callous' and drug-fuelled frenzy which 'traumatised' Mr Carlsen, the judge said his victim had been 'deprived of his liberty and his human dignity'. He said the offence was 'so serious that only an immediate sentence of imprisonment can be justified'.

O'Dowd has repeatedly denied swinging the chain at the younger man. But Mr Carlsen claimed the theft story was concocted to justify the 'punishment' meted out to him for refusing to have sex with O'Dowd at an earlier meeting. The pair had made contact through the Gaydar website. Heather Norton, prosecuting, said their first meeting went well until the singer suspected Mr Carlsen of hacking in to his computer.

They parted on good terms and O'Dowd paid the younger man £300 of the £400 they had agreed. In the weeks that followed, they exchanged emails in which the singer accused Mr Carlsen of tampering with his computer. But he eventually appeared to relent and arranged to see the younger man again. At the second meeting, O'Dowd beckoned his victim into his bedroom, before he and an unidentified man leapt on him, wrestled him to the floor and started beating him.

Giving evidence, Mr Carlsen told the court: 'George hit me, slapped me, and screamed, "****ing whore, ****. Now you are going to get what you deserve".' He said he was able to unscrew the hook from the wall using handcuffs as a tool. He ran to the door with O'Dowd pursuing him while wielding the metal chain. The victim managed to escape and ran out into the street. O'Dowd previously suggested that bruises Mr Carlsen sustained could have been due to the fact he was HIV positive. The singer did not give evidence in court - his brother David O'Dowd said it was because he wanted to protect their elderly mother.

The flamboyant singer has repeatedly reinvented himself as a solo artist, club DJ and writer of musicals But Mr Waterman said the former star's continuing battle with cocaine addiction had contributed to his actions. 'He was not himself when addled by the habitual and relatively long-lasting using of illegal drugs,' he said. But he said O'Dowd was making a concerted effort to deal with his drug addiction. He added: 'This defendant is a kind and generous man who is particularly mindful of others' needs. He is the antithesis of the haughty bullying star.' As he heard his fate, O'Dowd looked worriedly towards the public gallery, where relatives gasped as they heard the length of the jail term. One male family member kicked one of the courtroom doors, shouting: 'Fifteen months!'

It was all a far cry from the heights O'Dowd scaled with Culture Club in the 1980s. They had a string of hits and sold millions of records in the UK and abroad. But in 1985 O'Dowd was exposed as a heroin addict and his career plunged into freefall. Drugs problems and internal feuding led to Culture Club's demise in 1987. However, the singer bounced back to launch a successful career as a solo artist in the late 1980s and in the 1990s he reinvented himself as a DJ. But there was more scandal in 2006 when he admitted falsely reporting a burglary at his apartment in New York. He was ordered to perform community service and found himself sweeping the city's streets.

[faceless]

Boy George grows up
From the androgynous highs of the 80s and Culture Club to a spell in Pentonville, George O'Dowd's life has been nothing if not colourful. But now, aged 50, he tells Catherine Deveney why he finally feels proud of himself
Catherine Deveney
The Observer,
4 December 2011

Warra bitch, as Catherine Tate's Nan would say. Warran absolute bitch. Boy George arranges to meet at his north London house, a gothic pile apparently, luring me like you would a kitten with a saucer of milk, then half an hour beforehand says his friend's dogs are being a nuisance so we'll meet down his local instead. Nothing for it but to stomp disconsolately past his black wooden gate, peering above it in the hope of spotting a few bats rising from the turrets, cursing the sprawling green-and-red-veined autumnal foliage that hides the windows from prying eyes like mine. All those glories inside! Wonderful paintings and gilt crucifixes, I hear, because George is very spiritual and says things like, "On Tuesday I was in India at this temple…" as if he'd just popped down the King's Road. Religious artefacts that bend the knee to Jesus Christ and Muhammad and Hare Krishna – let's hedge our bets because all are welcome here – to say nothing of the contents of George's wardrobe and make-up box. He used to hoard jewellery in a biscuit tin as a boy and I bet it's still under his bed in there. It is too bad. Swapped for what? Ye Olde White Bear pub.

But actually, it doesn't matter. George opens his mind the way others open their front door. Not that he answers everything – as we'll see – but he has an unusual emotional honesty. Those infamous, acid-tongued retorts of the Culture Club frontman, who became famous singing, "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?", never did fully conceal the vulnerable Boy who wanted to be loved more than your average Joe. But George O'Dowd is not a boy any more. At 50 he has produced a photographic album of his life, a glossy coffee-table book called – wait for it – King of Queens, in which he is pictured in all his pouting, arresting androgyny: bows in his topknot and ribbons through his dreadlocks, pencilled eyebrows arched in permanent outrage above sculpted, blushered cheekbones and puckered lips. It costs £500, but is expected to follow the pattern of a similar publication on John Lydon which become a collectors' piece, selling on eBay for far more than the cover price.

At first, I think George looks pale today, almost peaky, dressed in black with a baseball cap, a few straying grey hairs peaking out at the temples. Then the obvious strikes. He's not unwell. He's just not wearing make-up. No bold sweep of eyeliner; no dramatic waves of colour across the lids. No warming blusher. Oh, George can still be a drag queen when he wants. He just doesn't need to be. There is something stripped back, a comfortable-in-his-skin quality that the absence of make-up is merely a symptom of. At 16, he thought it was his divine right to walk down the street in Woolwich dressed as a nun. It still amuses him when people get outraged at his appearance. But he recognises the strange dichotomy of drag. "You are wearing a mask, but on the other hand trying to draw attention, so it's a kind of, 'Look at me, don't look at me.' I can laugh at some of the shit I used to do. I am grown up now and I couldn't have said that 10 years ago. It would have been surrender, giving in. But it's so empowering to be able to say it. It's a wonderful thing."

He certainly has the life experiences of a grown-up. George was the anti-drugs 80s pop star, and later successful club DJ, who fell long and hard into addiction. In 2006, after moving to New York with his musical Taboo, he was sentenced to sweep the streets of New York for possession, and in 2009 was jailed in Britain after a bizarre case involving the false imprisonment of a 29-year-old Norwegian male escort and model, Audun Carlsen. After a drug-fuelled session with Carlsen, George accused him of stealing photographs from his laptop. He was sentenced to 15 months after handcuffing Carlsen to a wall and lashing out at him with a chain. He once said addiction was a fundamental lack but has revised that view. "A lot of it is proximity. If you are around it too much, you are going to get dragged in. I don't put myself in those situations now. If I think people are going to get drugs out, I won't be there. There was a point where I was like, oh yeah, fine… I don't do it. But it's not fine. It's never fine."

Legally, he cannot talk about the case, though you sense he has a tale to tell. "I think it's very unfair of you to ask me," he says, apparently without rancour. (Later, I discover he was uncomfortable with several questions but, interestingly, there is no real visible sign; no strop.) But does he have an instinctive emotional response to the episode – perhaps regret or guilt or shame? "No, I don't think about any of those specifics. I think about consequences of my addiction generally. Everything that happened in life when I was addicted was a consequence of being an addict. When I first went to prison, I had a kind of sense of outrage and then I thought: 'Actually, less is more.' That's one of the things I have learned in the last five years. Less is more."

He got clean the year before he entered prison. "That gave me a really strong place from which to encounter it. I got a job in the kitchen, had my own cell and made friends. I had to get used to being with me, learn to sort of like myself again." He read constantly – all the classics he claimed to have read already and never had – but television made him scream. "After a while I thought: 'Fucking hell, you've no idea what I am going through. Loose Women!'"

Prison developed its own normality. "That's the most terrifying thing about prison. I was only there about four months, but when it was time to go home I was thinking: 'Oh my God, I've got to go out of here and deal with my life. I am not sure I want to leave!'" Yet the experience changed him positively. "Once you get clear and get your head screwed on, you see the potential. You look at what you are doing and your behaviour. There was a big shift in me. I just thought, 'You are fucking around. And you can't any more.'"

The drama queen instincts have dissipated. "I look back now and most of the drama in my life was self-inflicted. I don't need to make up so much drama now. I watch my friends and think… and? He said… she said… Twitter…" He was once king of the bitchy put-down – "Imagine if one of your parents had been attractive" – but now opts for dignified silence, blocking unpleasant people on social networking sites. But he does admit it kills him not to have the last word. Part of him still wants to say, "You ugly bastard – fuck off!"

It's hardly surprising he once gravitated to drama. He grew up surrounded by it. I once interviewed his mother Dinah, a warm, chatty, Irish matriarch. (George loves and admires his mum hugely but steered clear when he was messed up. She saw through him and he couldn't take the scrutiny.) Dinah suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her husband Gerald, who dominated the house, but left her after 43 years of marriage. When Gerald died, the family did not recognise the saintly man described at his funeral. Yet George loved his dad. "He was a formidable character who shaped who I am. If you can write someone off as a bad person then it's easier, but when someone is also great and noble and generous and kind and funny and contradictory, it gets harder. Now I think about the great things. I don't really think about him smashing the house up."

Childhood wasn't unhappy, but it was full of volatility, with his father's violence, his mother's attempted overdose (she's very different now, he says: very strong) and later, his brother's psychiatric problems. Only after his father's death did they achieve a real unity. "I think his death got everyone back together. Not consciously. I don't think anyone said, 'Dad's gone so let's get together,' but I think we are a better family than we have ever been. In the past, everyone would turn up for a crisis. Now, we all turn up for dinner."

Surprisingly, his father was very supportive when his son came out. "I remember thinking: 'That's it, I'm finished. He's going to kill me.' But he was great," says George.

He loved music and dressing up, but was always conscious of being an outsider. "You are made to feel different long before you understand what it is. Other kids pointed it out. You don't walk like other boys. You don't talk like other boys. But at six you are not thinking about your sexuality."

It has been suggested that he trawled the internet for partners and escorts, but he says it's not true and is typical of the way people stereotype gay sex. He subscribes to Eddie Izzard's idea that sexuality is like a ruler: homosexuality at one end, heterosexuality at the other – and lots of grades in between. Where is he? "Pretty gay," he laughs. Ever had a relationship with a woman? No, he says instantly – then hesitates. Well, there was his friend Alice, who was like a beautiful boy. "We had this sort of… little… I don't know what it was, really."

He is no longer certain he's ever been properly in love. "I'm not sure. There was a lot of drama. I have a more loving relationship with a lot of my ex-partners now I am no longer with them. I am really close to Michael [a former partner] and love having him around. I don't fancy him any more, and I'm sure he doesn't fancy me, but the complicated stuff has gone. I love him and care what happens to him." His last few relationships have dissolved quite healthily, unlike the old days. "Not necessarily in the way I wanted, but I didn't go crazy."

Next year, Culture Club will re-form for a 30th-anniversary tour and album. Will it be difficult working with Jon Moss, Culture Club's drummer and the object of his affections and obsessions in all those early songs? No, but he admits their history gives a certain frisson. "It's a slightly weird experience. There's a kind of… of course… but I like it. I give a shit what happens to Jon. I regret a lot of the things I said. We experienced something so huge and magical together. I don't know if we understood what really happened. Sometimes, I think I know Jon better than I do, and then I think I don't really know him at all."

He walks me to the station, still talking. He doesn't need to, but he's kind in small ways, you can see that. And who would have believed that dignity would end up being so important to him? There is something admirable about the unadorned George O'Dowd, the way he has turned himself inside out, then learned from it.

"It doesn't matter what has happened in my life," he says. "Right now, I am proud of myself. That's a great place to be. A really wonderful place to be."