To feel sorry for George Michael that he felt unable to be honest about his sexuality for so long?

[girlfriend44]

Just been watching Wham in China. It seems such a shame that George felt he had to hide his sexuality from his parents and the media for so long.

Wham were really great fun weren't they?
Last Christmas still makes so much money from Royalties.

Anyone want to discuss Wham? Were they part of your youth?

Yes i was thinking the same and Larry Grayson both very camp and lots of innuendos .

It wasn't just popstars who felt it was dangerous to come out in the 80s. It was a horribly homophobic and dangerous time for many.

I was a teenager, and section 28 made things so difficult. I have vivid memories of being in year 10 in perhaps 86/87 and one monday all the boys were ostracising one lad, who was sitting in a corner looking grey and on the verge of tears. Turned out he'd tried to kiss another boy at a party over the weekend, and they were all calling him all kinds of vile names. My friend and I tried to be nice to him that day, and we told the teacher about the bullying, and the teacher said (I kid you not) that "i am not allowed to promote homosexuality so I'm not going to intervene" and allowed the other lads to call this boy a disgusting pervert with AIDS all day. He tried to kill himself that night after school and then left and went to a different school.

Nope. Didn’t have a clue

Kids can be do cruel
But the most shocking thing is the teacher fidnt intervene
I remember going to the Mardi gras in manchesters gay villiage with my friend and her girl friend in the late 90s a place where you would think people could be open about their sexuality
To go into the main area you needed a wrist band which was about £15
We all had one but we were sat at the edge of canal street having a drink outside a pub where you didnt need a wrist band
And a women came up to my friends partner asking her about the wrist band then asked if she was gay
And she said well yes
She head butted her and knocked her out cold
Awful behaviour.

Tough. Your job is to support your children.

@Cheese55 I didn't lol

I dont think the poster was suggesting otherwise
Only that in less enlightened times in many cultures being gay just wasent accepted
I would think theres probably still some parents who feel like that.

My uncle knew him back then, he didn't hide his sexuality from his friends and family only the mainstream media. It would have killed his career.

You have to go a little deeper than that, though. One way parents protect their children is by protecting them from what society will do to those who don’t conform. Traditional Greek culture would exclude, marginalise and condemn anyone that did not conform. That also happened here until very, very recently.

Some societies work on a shame culture and other others focus on guilt, which is more centred on the individual. You would not want your child to experience the consequences of either. But it’s how society function.

It’s not that you don’t love your child. It’s that you fear for what will happen to them. Condemnation is easy, as your post shows.

He could have absolutely lived life as a gay man, but he didn’t want the scrutiny and didn’t want the loss of sales.

If he had been in his glory days in this era he would have had the luxury of living his life as openly gay or queer or bi, but the music industry isn’t what it was and he wouldn’t have made the huge amount of money he made - although he might have been happier!

You live in the era you live in I’m afraid and with that comes the politics of the time. One hundred years ago was worse and in a hundred years time we’ll probably all be gone. Just try and enjoy the freedoms you have now.

Very very few in the industry were openly gay.

Bronski Beat were one of the few; even Frankie were a little more coy

these guys paved the way with their pink triangles, Age of Consent album and defying BBC “rules” by having Jimmy Somerville and Marc Almond look at one another when they sang I Feel Love

Bet Mary Whitehouse had palpitations

Yes, because gay men couldn't sell records back then. That was indeed the entire problem (!) How have you missed that?

To be fair, they likely also couldn’t sell many now if their target demographic is teenage girls which was the case with Wham.

Attitudes were different then. There was an element that children should be ‘seen and not heard’, rather than the child-centric viewpoint we have today. Yes, parents did support their children, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t recall there was so much involvement.

I remember when George Michael came out as gay. DP rolled his eyes and said he was mercenary for keeping his sexuality a secret just to make money. I said I didn’t blame him. George Michael was exceptionally talented and deserved success and I didn’t see why he should risk losing popularity and sales due to his sexuality. Our eldest son is gay and, in this supposedly enlightened age, he has been bullied, both in school and when out and about with his boyfriend. Despite very welcome changes to the law over the years and a bunch of Pride marches, there’s still a long way to go in society.

Attitudes in alot of comminities are still very anti gay, some people still chose not to come out to their famalies in order to maintai relationships.
George was out on the scene, with social media these days it wouldnt be possible.

Which communities?

What? Barry Manilow is gay?

V goady shithole

I'm the same age as George was and although I knew people who were gay and out in the 80s, it was a different time, although there are still plenty of bigots around now, young ones too. As others pointed out, the AIDS situation and fact he was a pop star with a huge following among young girls would have affected any decision he made about being open. When you add cultural/family aspects, it really is hardly surprising although I certainly heard rumours that he was gay and didn't move in celeb/music circles, at all.

His legacy stands though as a phenomenal talent who was also to all accounts, a kind and outstandingly generous man.

I didn't know either. He was my first crush (with Andrew of course). I used to practice my signature with his surname and loved his blonde coiffed hair a la princess Diana. Looking back so obvious but definitely wasn't at the time. But then we didn't have the barrage of social media so we'd only see snippets of videos and interviews. Most of us gauged him from the music and smash hits interviews.

There was a whole unground gay scene. So while I think it was ridiculous that his marketing/PR/Record company etc told him it would destroy his career if he went public - as they did with pretty much any gay performer/ actor/ actress etc back then WE all knew he was gay. We saw the likes of George out in the scene, being open in clubs etc.
Back in the days when the gay scene was full of closeted people, or people not out at work etc there were no camera phones and there were actual gay people in the bars rather than hen parties and ‘allies’ there was an understanding that that was our world.Not to be shared, certainly not with the tabloids.
Tabloids did deals with PR - if they got enough fed enough fodder for their pages then they wouldn’t publish certain things that were commonly known.
Things are obvs better now from a civil rights POV but Indo sometimes miss the old days too…

Not to mention all the wham videos suggested he was a straight man
It wouldnt be obvious to much of his target audience

I didn't know that when he was in Wham. It seems common knowledge at the time but clearly it wasn't otherwise there would have been no point in hiding it commercially.

Hahaha. Me neither! How the hell?