BOY GEORGE KNEW I WAS HIV POSITIVE

 

Escort tells of terror at being chained to wall by 'evil' Boy George and his desperate escape

 

By Daniel Bates Last updated at 5:05 PM on 24th November 2008

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088903/Escort-tells-terror-chained-wall-evil-Boy-George-desperate-escape.html

A male escort today branded Boy George 'evil' after giving a vivid account of being chained up and attacked by the singer.

Audun Carlsen, who is originally from Norway, said George pinned him to the floor in his bedroom, beat him up, swore at him, then handcuffed him to a eye-socket next to his bed.

When George produced a box of sex toys, chains and leather straps, the escort pulled his hand free and ran for the door.

Boy George arrives at London's Snaresbrook Crown Court today

As he grappled with the lock on the front door George allegedly struck him a number of times on the head and back with one of the metal chains, leaving him bloodied and bruised.

Fighting back the tears as he gave evidence in the witness box, Carlsen said: 'To this day I don't understand why someone could be so evil and do something like that. I would never have consented to that. I would never have been chained up.'

Mr Carlsen explained that on April 27 last year, he went to George's flat for a photo shoot, but was clear in his mind that there would be nothing more between the two men.

After the shoot he was sitting on the sofa in his boxer shorts and trainers when George called him into his bedroom.

He said: 'George was standing just in front of the door and this other man was standing on his right-hand side next to the door. As soon as I got eye contact they were both jumping on me.

 

They held me down and beat me and I couldn't move.

'This other man was more passive in that he was helping George to hold me down, while George was holding and hitting.

'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 'f...ing whore' and 'c..t, now you're gonna get what you deserve'. I was in such a shock.

'I was dragged on the floor towards the bedroom and they handcuffed my right-hand. I've never seen handcuffs like that before, it was very sick.

'He was continuing beating me and screaming things at me.'

Mr Carlsen said that he was screaming at George 'Why are you doing this to me', but was given no explanation.

He said: 'George was very angry. His face, I can't get it out of my head. It looked mad.'

Both men left the room for a few minutes and George returned soon afterwards carrying a box.

Mr Carlsen managed to unscrew the eye-socket and fled towards the front door.

He said: '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. He was grabbing me.

'I ran down the stairs, I think he followed me out in the corridor but not down the stairs.'

Mr Carlsen had entered George's flat around midnight, but by now it was around 6am the following day and his screams for help in the street, were heard by a newsagent, who came to his assistance and phoned the police.

Earlier Carlsen told that during his first meeting with George, where the star also took photos of him, they were both taking cocaine.

On that occasion he described George as 'quite wired' and said: 'If you do too much coke you get a bit wired.'

After that photo shoot Mr Carlsen left because George accused him of tampering with his computer then sent him a string of 'bizarre' and 'crazy' emails via the Gaydar website.

George's correspondence was a mixture of ranting and poetry and described himself as 'too gay' and the mention of his name was 'worst case scenario' among gays and bisexuals.

George looked unrecognisable from his 80s heyday as he sat impassively in the dock throughout the proceedings.

He has ballooned in weight and now has a double chin and his shaven head reveals tattoos on the top and back.

He wore a black coat, black scarf, black trousers and black Adidas trainers with a white trim.

Among the packed public gallery were half-a-dozen fans who said they were there to support the star.

The trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court continues.

 

 

Interview: Boy George

THE CITYZEN 4:49pm Friday 21st November 2008  By Caroline Dutton »

 

HAVING had two previous interviews with Boy George cancelled at the last minute without explanation, I was stunned when this time he called bang on time with a low-key: “Hello, it's George.”

I was glad of his introduction after deliberating on the etiquette of calling him “Boy George” or just “Boy”.

But he uses the name George and is as down-to-earth and normal as the name suggests.

Of the new Here And Now tour, he said: “It's a long way away but you've got to book next year in the credit crunch, haven't you?”

He's looking forward to meeting up with a few of his old '80s pals and rivals, although he insisted there won't be any late-night shennanigans.

“I don't drink or anything nowadays so the most I'll be doing is enjoying a cup of tea and a sandwich after the gig.

“We're all a bit older now and we haven't got the egos anymore so I'm sure we'll all get on. We were competing against each other when we were younger but now we're not as bold.”

George is something of a reformed character since his humiliating brush with the law last year which resulted in him being ordered to sweep the streets of New York during five days of community service after being found guilty of wasting police time.

“I have put it all that behind me,” he said.

“I've made mistakes but I don't judge myself by them. I don't let it define me. What you have to do is develop a tough skin. That doesn't mean you stop caring what people write about you. You just have to put it in perspective. If I took everything I ever read about myself seriously I'd never leave the house.”

Nowadays he tries to live in the present.

“I think about the future. The past is gone,” he said. “I've learned to live in the moment and love what's happening now. When I was younger what I took things for granted — everyday things. Now I appreciate them for what they are.”

But isn't this new show all about the past?

“A little bit of nostalgia is good fun but too much and I get a headache,” he laughed. “Sometimes I think I'm the only person who knows the '80s are over.”

In recent years George has diversified, writing and starring in the musical production of his life Taboo, designing a range of clothing and of course DJing, for which he earns £7,000 per night.

But he he never stopped making music.

“Music has really always been my number one passion, but you do have to find other things to stimulate yourself if you're in this career,” he said.

“I'm always looking for ways of expressing myself creatively. The main thing is I love to write. It's my favourite thing because writing stuff is the essence of it. The rest of it, the performing and stuff, I could take it or leave it."

Despite his mistakes, the public has never abandoned Boy George. Why do people love him so much?

"I don't know but I'm very grateful for it," he said. "Sometimes I think 'Thank God for strangers'. When you travel around it's often people who you've never met before who give you love and appreciation.

"That's what I love about gigs. Sometimes I'll look out from the stage and see some mad person dancing on the balcony having a fantastic time and it's me who has made them feel like that. It's wonderful.

"When I play Karma Chameleon it's pandemonium. It's so funny to see. We did a gig in Bradford this year and an 82-year-old woman asked to meet me backstage. I thought that was great. I hope I'm still going to gigs when I'm 82.

"I think if you're honest, people love you. That's the only thing I can think of."

l See Boy George in the Here And Now tour alongside Kim Wilde, Pete Burns, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Altered Images, Brother Beyond and Hazel O'Connor at Manchester Evening News Arena on Friday, May 15, 2009. Call 0844 8478000.

http://www.burnleycitizen.co.uk/leisure/3868479.Interview__Boy_George/

 

 

I was made to feel like an outsider

Nov 21 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

 

Boy George has moved away from his chameleon past and is content with being less colourful these days, as Emma Pinch discovers

DRESSED down in a grey T-shirt and jeans, Boy George is make-up free and very slightly wheezy when he sparks up his first Marlboro after an early evening snooze.

In the dim light of his tour bus, the azure of his eyes, still heavy from sleep, is the only flash of colour on his face.

This is a markedly different Boy George from the brightly painted creature of the 80s, all bitchy bons mots and diva-ish tantrums.

He's content to be less colourful.

It will soon be a year since he last touched drugs, and his tendency for melodrama has been dampened.

His band-mates are still getting used to it.

At a gig in the early hours of the morning, he missed the second verse of a song and shortly after, without much ado, retired to bed.

“For the whole night, everyone had been surmising why I'd gone to bed. My drummer asked if he'd put me off. I was just tired.

“It's amazing how something so innocuous can set off this wave,” he reflects, a smidgen delightedly.

George, 47, believes his famed tantrums were a way of asserting control.

“When you become really, really famous, it's almost like you lose control of your life,” he explains. “You don't pack your suitcase, other people are getting your passport for you.

“When I was with Culture Club, it was mental. I'd gone from this kid living in a squat, eating fish and chips and living hand to mouth, to having everything I wanted all the time. You're moving around on invisible casters.

“Even now I'm doing something tomorrow, but nobody's told me about it.

“I might make a comment like ‘thanks for f------ telling me' but it won't be anywhere near as ridiculous as it was in the 80s – smash the whole bus up and leave the band.

“As you get older, you realise you can either make things fun or you can make them a nightmare. It's really that simple.”

In the mid-80s, George had a £500-a-day heroin addiction which brought him to the brink of death.

In the nick of time, he put himself through rehab. But afterwards he succumbed once more.

“I was being around people doing them and putting up with it. After a while, I said ‘I'll have a bit'.

“Then for a long time I was thinking this is really c---, and my life's c---, and does it have to be like this?”

He's always kept working. After Culture Club disbanded, he wrote and starred in the musical Taboo. The latter folded, but his DJing career took off.

As a child, he was much as he is now.

“Playful, talkative, attention-seeking,” he laughs. “When I started singing, it was all about having a voice, about being heard.

“Since the age of six, I was always made to feel like an outsider. Poof, girl, whatever the insults of the day were.”

Music was his escape.

“I always thought Bowie and Marc Bolan had these blessed lives,” he says. “I imagined them sort of living on liquid food and having visits from other pop stars with gifts.

“You don't imagine them ever running out of milk or banging their toe against the bed.”

At around the age of 15, inspired by a group of “mad girls who used to wear plastic sandals and coloured streaks in their hair”, he returned to school wearing drainpipes, waistcoats and collarless shirts. “It was ‘Oh, you've got your granddad's clothes on, can't you afford new ones?' But it kind of gave me confidence,” he recalls.

He still loves make-up and dressing up, but he's never been into banging on about his sexuality.

He famously told Russell Harty he preferred a “nice cup of tea to sex”, to avoid dissecting it.

“I never, ever felt that my sexuality was part of my act,” he shrugs.

“If I talk about it, it's because it's what I am, it's normal, like having a cappuccino or a bag of crisps.”

Make-up now is “for special”, and he insists he feels just as comfortable au naturel. “It's a great invention, but I don't feel I can't be seen without it,” he says.

“That would be the ultimate pressure to me. I think I'm pretty with make-up, but I'm not ugly without it.”

When arrested for cocaine possession in 2006 in New York, however, his flamboyance became a problem.

“I knew I wasn't going to be treated fairly, no matter what.

“Before I went, I worked myself into a bit of a frenzy about how awful it was going to be. I went to my mum ‘I really don't want to do this' and she said, ‘Get over there, get on with it, don't cause any problems, you'll be back in a week. Where's the big drama?'”

He looks on his punishment as his “media service”.

“I knew they were going to make my community service into a photo-op. I had the police commissioner following me around the first couple of days, trying to get in the pictures.”

He teamed up with a “nutty Puerto Rican girl who'd broken the law about 100 times”. They took great pride in their work.

It won't be his last brush with the judiciary. Hanging over him is a court case involving the alleged false imprisonment of a Norwegian man – a charge he denies.

But Boy George's new philosophy of living life in the moment seems to be holding up. He doesn't take too much notice of headlines.

“Those things don't define who I am or diminish who I am, they're just kind of things that happen,” he says. “I don't want to make it into a career move, which is what most pop stars do. Like George Michael apologising for taking drugs.

“The only people you've really got to apologise to are yourself and your family.”

And with that he puts on his shades and slips unseen out of the back of the bus, neatly avoiding the waiting fans. He knows which George they want to see.

* BOY GEORGE stars in the Here & Now tour, featuring Altered Images, Kim Wilde, and Howard Jones, among others, at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, on May 14, 2009. For tickets, call the box office on 0844 8000400 or go to www.accliverpool.com

emma.pinch@dailypost.co.uk 

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-life-features/liverpool-arts/2008/11/21/boy-george-i-was-made-to-feel-like-an-outsider-64375-22307803/

 

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