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I think drugs played a big role in the Taboo scene. People were taking copious amounts of ecstasy, which had filtered over from New York, and at a certain point you were more likely to spend most of the night in the toilets at the club.
Even from the age of about 6 years old, I was kind of made to feel different by other kids - you know, I was a quite pretty kid, and I got called 'girl' a lot, and 'woman' and all of that. And school is really not a place to be different.
The world is less homophobic, depending on where you are in the world... As a gay man I feel very strongly about those issues around the world - there've been huge changes and developments, but there are still places where things are scary.
People in Scunthorpe don't care what I say. And I'm not camp, either. I'm a geezer. I'm not a raving queer, I've got a bit of character. I just ignore people who shout at me in the street. I just stick my head in the air; I'm not interested.
The Taboo crowd was certainly less precious. They were happy to end up in a pile of vomit and booze at the end of the night. It was antifashion, in a sense. They were just as obsessive as the New -Romantics but they acted like they didn't care.
I was about 16 when punk started to happen. It was so exciting. You had a social depression going on in the U.K. There was a sanitation strike. London was really grim, gray. You had Margaret Thatcher coming in. It was a really revolutionary time.
When you're younger, you think you're in competition with everyone. You think everyone's success is a threat to you, and this is a thing you grow out of. You get older and you suddenly realize the only person you're in competition with is yourself.
In a way, we're going backwards. In the early '80s, it was like all these huge strides, and everything was more free and easy. I think we're going back. I don't know if it's the economics or what, but things are getting more right-wing, definitely.
Leigh Bowery created outfits that made him look deformed, which was very brave. I believe this was the main thing that gave Leigh his edge. His designs were often breath-taking, but it was the way he used his body that was so utterly new and refreshing.
Certainly for me, when punk exploded in the 1970s, it was just great. We had these wonderful clothes to wear. We could do great things with our hair. We had protest badges that read "I belong to the Blank Generation." It was such a great time to be a kid.
For me the most interesting thing about Leigh Bowery was the way he used his body as a style statement. He was a big guy, but, because he was tall and had long legs, he looked in proportion - even sexy - despite being overweight by conventional standards.
Gay unions, what is that about? I haven't been invited to any ceremonies, and I wouldn't go anyway. The idea that gay people have to mimic what obviously doesn't work for straight people any more... I think is a bit tragic. I am looking forward to gay divorces.
I wasn't part of the Taboo crowd the same way I was part of the New Romantics. I suppose I was seen more as an elder statesman because I had been around the London club scene for so many years. To the Taboo crowd I was really seen as a pop star, someone famous.
And being gay isn't so easy, either I've always said that if anyone ever thought I was straight they must need glasses - but when I finally came out and said, "Yes, I do sleep with men and I'm gay," yeah, I lost record sales. There's no question - big, big time.
The New Romantic scene was so tiny. Although it got lots of mileage in the media, it was a really small club with only a core group of people. As it got more popular, kids started to come from the suburbs all dressed up, but it -really wasn't as big as it looked.
My mother and father were fantastic, very active. I find it difficult to say this, but I'm quite a loving person and I've always been loving to my friends. In the long run, that pays off. I'm very interested in other people, and if you are, they're interested in you.
At 16, I walked around knowing I'd get chased and attacked for dressing a certain way - I felt I had an undeniable right to be who I wanted to be. My father said to hit them back, but I was never much good at that. So I developed a big mouth instead of a quick right hook.
To be here in America so soon after the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage and at the birth of the Caitlyn phenomena feels so timely. It feels perfect for my universe to collide with Caitlyn's, but on a purely personal level, I just think she is utterly fabulous and brave.
I like the big bombastic singers, but I'm also very drawn to what I call character singers. They're people who obviously aren't very huge singers, but they've got this ability to tell a story and touch you emotionally without really using any kind of histrionics or special effects.
My audience here in America is so eclectic. It's a real mix of people, which is great. Like what I was doing with Culture Club - world music, multiculturalism - not defining everything in terms of sexuality or color. It was about everyone coming together and being part of something.
There's a guy in London named Ben Cohen who is doing great things. In a way, we need people like Ben - we need straight guys to come out and say, 'What're you worried about? Get over yourself.' That's what we need! Because no one's listening to us - certainly, no one is listening to me.
For artists of my caliber, we're not played on the radio, so we don't really get a chance to get involved in that debate at all. We don't get a chance, because this weird kind of ageism exists in pop music. If you're past a certain age, you're not relevant. That's the kind of cliched term.
If you go back to the '80s, you had a whole plethora of artists, everyone from Madonna and Cyndi Lauper to Prince. God bless Lady Gaga for doing her thing, but she's kind of a lone peacock now. If anything, we have a much more conservative kind of pop world. It's not necessarily about individuality.
Leigh [Bowery] affected a posh English voice and elongated his vowels, and you never knew if he was being sincere or mocking you. If I ever commented on one of his outfits he would snip, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Boy George. I do value your opinion." And then he would spin and make some ridiculous noise and mince off.
I'm not someone who can sing anything... And my favorite singers aren't people whose voice you would say is amazing. I'm a big Bob Dylan fan, a huge David Bowie fan... none of those people have orthodox, cabaret voices. These are people where what they're singing about is just as important as how they're singing it.
We changed the name from Sex Gang Children to Culture Club because Jon Moss, our drummer, went to L.A. on holiday and took some demo tapes with him. -Everyone loved the music but nobody liked the name. I -remember getting a postcard from Jon from L.A. saying, "I don't think America's ready for the Sex Gang Children."
I am thinking of George Michael's family, friends and fans. He was so loved and I hope he knew it because the sadness today is beyond words. Devastating. What a beautiful voice he had and his music will live on as a testament to his talent. I can't believe he is gone. I hope the Buddha will hold him in his arms. NMRK.
My dad was very explosive, God rest his soul. He could fly off the handle like no one I've ever known, and I have definitely got that in my personality: that ability to sort of smash the house up and then say, 'Put the kettle on,' to have that kind of attitude of, 'Well, I'm OK now, so everybody else has got to be OK.'
I went back to DJ'ing in 1987, and it's been an incredible second career for me. Plus, it's almost a parallel universe. If you don't go to underground clubs, you wouldn't know what I do or who I am. So there's been a whole new audience of people that don't even know I'm that 'Boy George', the one their mother used to like.
Before I got famous, I was like a rake. When I was a teenager, I lived on nervous energy. And I always forgot to eat. It was not something I was obsessed with. And then suddenly I got famous, people started taking me out to fancy joints. And the pounds pile on. So I'm much more conscious now about when I eat. How I eat. What I eat.
Whenever there's an interview with me, I might read it, but I don't read the comments because they're so hateful sometimes. When someone writes something nasty, I just think, "If that's your contribution to my day, I really don't need your impoliteness." I'm lucky that people are very cool with me and I get a lot of love. I appreciate that.
The fabulous side of Taboo was dressing up and dancing like no one was watching you. There were no rules. You had Jeffrey Hinton playing every kind of music. It was like going back to when I used to deejay at Planet in '79, where you'd mix in nutty things like hip-hop or reggae or The Sound of Music [1965] or other film soundtracks - whatever.
I remember going onstage on Broadway in this Leigh Bowery thing for a track like "Ich Bin Kunst." I've got breasts, this latex dripping down on my head, and I come out in a box. I just remember the audience looking really horrified because Rosie [O'Donnell] was trying to sell the show as sort of Pippin and Annie. She was saying it's a family show.
What happened during the previews of 'Taboo' [musical] was that it was the first time I'd ever been written about as a great song-writer - I cried. I absolutely wept, because it wasn't the usual stuff like, "Oh, he was a drug addict and he did this and that..." It was really looking at the music and it was really complimentary. It was a huge thing.
My family knew I was gay when I was 15, long before I got famous. But it's a very different thing coming out to your family and coming out to the universe. That's a big step. Maybe without me, there wouldn't be Adam Lambert. Without Bowie, there wouldn't be me. Without Quentin Crisp, there wouldn't have been Bowie. So everything is part of a big daisy chain.
The 1970s was probably the most exciting decade to be a teenager, from discovering Little Richard at the end of the 1960s to glam rock to punk rock to electro music. So much happened in that 10-year span. There were so many musical revolutions. Some were happening at the same time. You had disco going on behind punk. You had Michael Jackson. You had the Sex Pistols.
I enjoy the freedom of living alone and not having anyone interfere with my belongings. I mean, I'm quite a selfish human being. I think being in the public eye and growing up, it's made me quite selfish in some respects. I can be extremely generous with friends, but in relationships I can be quite mean in terms of my time and my affections. I take people for granted, and I'm trying not to do that.
Tweeting is something you can do wherever you are, on your phone, on the computer, in an airport lounge. It's easy to do, and I do find it fun to communicate with people. It's quite nice that we can have almost direct contact with anyone in the world at any time. I don't know how important it is in terms of one's career. It seems to be pretty much superfluous in terms of that, but it's nice to communicate.
The Taboo scene was a kind of deconstructed version of the New Romantics. The Taboo crowd was using a lot of the visual ideas that had already been used. I remember the first time I spotted Leigh Bowery and Trojan parading around in clubs: They were in their "Pakis from Outer Space" look, and the makeup was quite similar to one of my old looks, because I was quite fond of wearing blue, green, or yellow foundation, and so I was pretty dismissive of them at first.
You're lucky if you reach the point where you go, "OK, I have a wonderful life ...I fly around the world, stay in beautiful places, people are generally quite sweet to me, what's to complain about?" But I think you have to get there... And it's taken me the best part of 54 years to reach that point where I'm like, "I'm very lucky, I'm lucky, I'm blessed" - all of those things. I wish I could impart that to other people but I think when you're young, you just don't listen.