Boy George | Biography, Culture Club, Career, & Facts | Britannica (original) (raw)
Quick Facts
Original name:
George Alan O’Dowd
Also Known As:
George Alan O’Dowd
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Boy George (born June 14, 1961, London, England) is a British singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the British new wave band Culture Club, which rose to fame in the early 1980s. Boy George, known for his androgynous appearance, with often flamboyant makeup and clothing, was a trailblazing icon of 1980s music and fashion. His voice and charisma defined Culture Club as the band produced multiple top 10 hits in the United Kingdom and in the United States, including “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” (1982), “Time (Clock of the Heart)” (1982), and “Karma Chameleon” (1983).
Early life
Born into a large Irish family, Boy George grew up alongside four brothers and a sister. He and his siblings were raised in the Eltham neighborhood in southeast London. From an early age he loved music and listened to a variety of genres, including disco and rock, and many different artists and bands, among them David Bowie and T. Rex. When Boy George was 11 years old, his father bought him a ticket to see Ziggy Stardust (a Bowie stage persona); the experience crystallized Boy George’s desire to be a famous singer. His father, who worked in construction, further exposed him to artists such as Pearl Bailey and Bessie Smith by bringing home records found in homes where previous residents had left behind possessions.
Boy George soon began developing his eccentric style of dress, increasingly pushing the boundaries of the then-accepted norms, to the point that he was eventually expelled from school for his extravagant appearance. He subsequently took various jobs, including working as a milliner and as a clothing salesman and picking fruit. He also once worked as a makeup artist for the Royal Shakespeare Company. At night he frequented London’s punk and gay clubs and became familiar with the city’s punk subculture.
Culture ClubBritish new wave band Culture Club, with (from left) Roy Hay, Mikey Craig, Boy George, and Jon Moss, photographed in Central Park, New York City, 1982.
Boy George broke onto London’s music scene when fashion designer and music manager Malcolm McLaren asked him to join, as a second singer, the new wave band Bow Wow Wow. Boy George’s stage name with the group was Lieutenant Lush. Shortly thereafter, however, he left to form In Praise of Lemmings, with Mikey Craig on bass and Jon Suede on guitar. They soon renamed themselves Sex Gang Children. In 1981, following the replacement of Suede with Roy Hay on guitar and the addition of Jon Moss on drums, the group’s name changed again, this time to Culture Club.
After initially struggling to secure a deal with EMI Records, Culture Club moved forward with Virgin Records. Although their first three singles—“White Boy,” “I’m Afraid of Me,” and “Mystery Boy,” all released in 1982—failed to chart, the British music and fashion press took notice of Boy George. Culture Club released “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” later the same year; the song quickly climbed to the top of the charts in several countries, including the United Kingdom. Soon thereafter the band’s debut album, Kissing to Be Clever, climbed to number five on the U.K. charts, and the single “Time (Clock of the Heart)” reached number three. Early in 1983 the single “Church of the Poison Mind” also found success. Culture Club’s next album, Colour by Numbers, released later that year, included the single “Karma Chameleon,” which hit number one on the charts in multiple countries, including the United States.
In 1984 Culture Club released their third album, Waking Up with the House on Fire. The album failed to match the critical acclaim of its predecessors, even though the single “The War Song” climbed to number two in the United Kingdom and was in the top 20 on the U.S. charts. About the same time, Boy George developed an addiction to heroin. In 1986 From Luxury to Heartache was released. The success of the single “Move Away” marked a potential return for the group. That same year Boy George’s drug addiction became public knowledge, and he was convicted of heroin possession. The band separated, and the following year Boy George pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana.
Later career and life
From 1989 to 1992 Boy George was the lead singer for the electronic pop and dance group Jesus Loves You. He released albums under his own record label, More Protein. In the 1990s Boy George also gained acclaim as a DJ, and in 1995 he published the autobiography Take It like a Man (with Spencer Bright). Culture Club reunited in 1998, and Boy George worked with the group to release the compilation album Greatest Moments, which included new songs, among them “I Just Wanna Be Loved”; the single reached number four on the U.K. charts. Culture Club’s fifth studio album, Don’t Mind If I Do (1999), however, performed poorly.
In 2003 Boy George wrote the score for the Broadway show Taboo, which was produced by American film and television actress Rosie O’Donnell, and two years later he published a second autobiography, Straight (with Paul Gorman). About this time he also was sentenced to community service in New York City for falsely reporting a burglary in his apartment, where police, upon searching the premises, found cocaine.
In 2008 Boy George revived his singing career with the single “Yes We Can,” inspired by the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Later that year he was convicted of falsely imprisoning a male escort, who claimed that Boy George beat him with a metal chain; Boy George subsequently served several months in prison. The discovery of a ruptured polyp on one of his vocal cords in 2014 forced the cancellation of a Culture Club reunion tour. In 2017 Boy George partnered with the Young Men’s Christian Association Australia to produce a cover version of the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” in support of a campaign to raise awareness about the issues of mental health, youth unemployment, and marriage equality.
Boy George published a third autobiography, Karma: My Autobiography, in 2023; the work was ghostwritten by Bright. Boy George later performed in the Broadway musical Moulin Rouge!