Boy's Own Story - Jeremy Head talks to the legendary Boy George

His PR people told me: "Just ask to speak to George." I'm stood outside the Venue theatre off the back of Leicester Square on a dreary Thursday afternoon. There's a bell next to the stage door. A guy opens it a chink. "George who?" he asks. "Well err, Boy George I say.

I wonder if there's a sense of having been through so much, it's simply a case of 'Fuck 'em, I'll say what I like'. "Yeah fuck em! I might as well tell the truth," he agrees. "People's reactions to the book were so varied and so contradictory. People that I thought I'd been really nice about hated me." It seems like it was quite a cathartic exercise - an opportunity to patch up some friendships, to take stock a little. Taboo continues this process of looking back, before moving on. I wonder if this faze of his career and life is about burying hatchets and re-establishing balance. "More burying hatchets in people's backs really," he laughs.

And the make-up has served George well - a mask to hide behind, a persona that he can create and manipulate. But he seems comfortable stepping out from behind the mask these days too. I ask if he feels he still has anything left to achieve. Interestingly it's in his personal life - when that mask is off - that he feels unfulfilled. "A successful relationship," he says without hesitation. The new romantic is still an old romantic at heart: "I think that I need someone that doesn't run away when they find that I'm not strong, that I am vulnerable - that's what I really need to achieve!"

© Jeremy Head 2003

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Total words: 2500
Available for syndication to non-UK territories (email:syndication@jeremyhead.com)

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