Narrator (11:14)

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Jake Brennan (11:44)

Hey discos. If you want more Disgraceland, be sure to listen every Thursday to our weekly After Party bonus episode where we dig deeper into the stories we tell in our full weekly episodes. In these after Party bonus episodes, we dive into your voicemails and texts, emails and DMs and discuss your thoughts on the wild lives and behavior of the artists and entertainers that we're all obsessed with. So leave me a message at 617-906-6638, disgracelandpodmail.com or disgracelandpod on the socials and join the conversation every Thursday in our after party bonus episode.

T-Mobile Host (12:20)

Today at T Mobile, I'm joined by a special co anchor.

Narrator (12:23)

What up everybody? It's your boy, big Snoop.

T-Mobile Host (12:25)

D O Double G Snoop where can people go to find great deals?

Narrator (12:29)

Head to T mobile.com and get four iPhone 16s with Apple Intelligence on us.

Jake Brennan (12:33)

Plus four lines for 25 bucks.

T-Mobile Host (12:35)

That's quite a deal, Snoop. And when you switch to T Mobile you can save versus the other big guys. Comparable plans plus streaming respect.

Narrator (12:42)

When we up out of here, see.

Jake Brennan (12:44)

How you can save on wireless and streaming versus the other big guys@t mobile.com switch Apple Intelligence requires iOS 18.1 or later control for some. When you lose it, it costs a lot to get it back. For music festival promoter Roberto Medina, the cost to once again be in control was $5 million. Or rather, that's how much his family ponied up to guarantee his safe release. The armed men from Rio de Janeiro's criminal underworld who kidnapped him three weeks earlier kept their end of the bargain. They let Medina go and moved on to the next powerful Brazilian they could abduct and demand a heavy ransom for. In return, Medina got back to his life controlling what he could. Which in his case meant planning the music festival Rock in Rio. A highly ambitious nine night affair with big corporate sponsorships and even bigger names that was scheduled to take place in January of 1991. Some artists turned tail when it became known that Medina's kidnapping ordeal was no isolated incident. Not George Michael. The $1.5 million he was getting paid to play two nights at the festival was one reason why the four armed bodyguards were four more. And then there were his other demands. To sweeten the pot, he had Medina pay for his friends to fly down to Rio too. Put them all up. And not just anywhere, but at the Royal Rio Palace. The same place Sinatra stayed when Medina brought old Blue eyes to Brazil for the first time some 10 years earlier. And then when the Royal Rio palace wasn't good enough for George, he had Medina move him to the even swankier Copacabana Palace. Specifically into the very suite where his friend Princess Diana had once stayed. What the hell else was Medina gonna do? He gave 5 million to armed thugs like it was nothing. And the least he could do was give a fraction of that to a guy who was royalty himself. Musical royalty. Even back in the Wham years, George was a star. The kind of star for whom demands were non negotiable. George expected the very best, even if that meant paying ten grand to Fly his stylist sister across the Atlantic to fix his hair for a video shoot. George Michael, not Roberto Medina, was the one truly in control. Control of his image, his narrative, his closeted life. Only, he said, what photos of him could be used and what photos could not. For his second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice, Volume 1, a record intended to be a more mature artistic statement, he tore down his own iconography, literally torching the leather jacket from Faith in the music video for Freedom 90, a video which featured five of the hottest women in the world at the time. Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, AKA Cindy C, Tatiana Pattis and Christy Turlington, but most notably did not feature the man of the hour, George Michael in a video made by the soon to be famous film director David Fincher. An equal to George Michael when it came to artistic control. But I digress. The Freedom 90 video played on what felt like a non stop loop on mtv. Yet for all the sex oozing from the screen, George Michael was, like I said, conspicuously absent from it. He knew exactly what he was doing, just like he knew what he was doing back when Faith was released and his self described goal was to cross over not to the pop chart, as was typically the case, but to the soul in R and B charts. It was one thing to see his ballad One More Try top what was then called the hot Black singles chart. But when he beat both Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown to win best sole R and B artist at the 1989American music Music Awards, singers like Dionne Warwick very publicly were like, what the fuck? And Don Cornelius, host of Soul Train, said of that particular win, this being a quote unquote, free country. People are entitled to call George Michael a soul artist and in effect change the meaning of the word soul. But at the Rock In Rio in January 1991, 27 year old George Michael's soul was very much alive and kicking out in the crowd. One of the locals, Anselmo Filippa, seven years George's senior, was staring directly into it. Anselmo's eyes burrowed deep into the pop star's sexually charged aura. He was smitten. He was struck by George Michael's beauty, his voice, the whole package. And this wasn't a fanboy thing. Anselmo was at the show for the Experience and for some of the other performances, not George specifically. But right now, he felt a connection. He simply had to meet him. The next day, Anselmo tracked George down at the Copacabana palace and watched as he got into a taxi he greased the palm of one of the cabbies at the hotel stand to give up. George's destination, Buzios, a few hours away. And with the help of a well connected friend who owned a house in that resort town, Anselmo skipped work and made the two hour drive. He found George in a club, dancing and partying, walked over to him and told him straight up, I'm Anselmo Felipe and I followed you for 200 miles. Typically, a confession like this from a complete stranger would set off red flags for anyone. Not least of them being an international pop star with a legion of fans, some of them crazed. George Michael, however, had been enjoying the company of strangers since he was 16. And this sort of thing didn't frighten him in the least. In fact, it turned him on. But there was something different about Anselmo. He was more than a passing encounter in a public toilet. George could have sworn seeing him now that he had actually first laid eyes on Anselmo way out in the crowd the night before from where he stood on stage. And that he too was feeling strong connection. A connection that went beyond wanting just sex. This was fate. This was destiny. At least in the eyes of George Michael and Anselmo Felipe. The next stretch of time was more blissful than not. Or at least as blissful as it could be for a man who continued to live his life very much in secret. George flew Anselmo back to Los Angeles with him, where they began living together in a lavish new home that George had built in Beverly Hills. The house was filled with orchids and also with love. Yet although George introduced Anselmo to his inner circle as his partner, their love was forbidden in public for fear that any public display would lead to George being outed. And if that happened, his career and everything that came with it. This house with giant glass walls, for instance, would be taken away. In the end, however, it was romantic bliss that was taken away. When Anselmo was diagnosed with aids, George continued to keep his sexuality in his private life a secret. And when he sang Queen Somebody to Love at a tribute concert for Freddie Mercury, who recently died from the same disease, he secretly dedicated it to Anselmo. But no one could know this. Just like no one could know that the power of his absolutely electrifying performance that night was in large part due to to how he was mapping his own profound pain onto the song's painful lyric. No one could know any of it. Which is why George wouldn't visit Anselmo in the hospital when he got really sick. And also why he didn't fly down to Rio for the funeral. When Anselmo passed away in 1993 at the age of 36, George Michael fell into a deep depression. He was angry, angry at the press as they continued to pry. He was angry at his record label, too. He believed Sony had failed to properly promote Listen Without Prejudice and now had him shackled in what he called professional slavery. He sued and was told by a judge months later that his argument had no substance whatsoever. When his mother passed away, his depression intensified. He was taking Prozac daily and smoking marijuana at every waking moment. Even though he was making new music, like his third studio album, Older, released in 1996, he wasn't touring. The press, those buzzards, were unrelenting. They called him the Howard Hughes of pop music. But George Michael was no germaphobe recluse. He made sure he got out of the house regularly. He always went alone, leaving his new boyfriend, Kenny Goss, behind. They said long walks were therapeutic, and George supposed they were. But more therapeutic for him at this moment. More than the walk, the weed, the Prozac was the destination. Will Rogers Memorial park, about a mile from his house in Beverly Hills. There, he tried to blend in among the palm trees, his sunglasses and ball cap obscuring his face and thus his celebrity. He was just one of the guys, searching, like they all were, for that furtive glance, that knowing look. He found one, just like he always did, hanging around the yellow stucco public toilet. Six foot something, bright white teeth, T shirt and jeans. The two walked into the restroom together as strangers. But within minutes, George Michael would find out that the man he thought was an anonymous tryst was, in fact, an undercover officer. Beverly Hills Police Department. We'll be right back after this.

Narrator (22:32)

Word, word, word.

LinkedIn Host (22:38)

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PayPal Host (23:09)

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Jake Brennan (23:13)

Who's paying for the mattress topper?

Snoop Dogg (23:15)

You mean the beanbag chair?

Jake Brennan (23:17)

Aren't we getting a mini fridge? Can we create a pool on PayPal? It lets us collect the money before we buy. Oh, yes, that's smart.

Snoop Dogg (23:25)

Glad we can agree on something easily.

PayPal Host (23:28)

Pool split and Send money with PayPal. Get started. In the PayPal app, a PayPal account is required to send and receive money. A balance account is required to create a pool.

Police Officer (23:42)

On April 7, 1998, at approximately 16:48 hours, that's 4:48pm Beverly Hills Police officers arrested the singer known as George Michaels. Mr. Michaels was arrested for a violation of 647A of the penal code, engaging in a lewd act. The arrest was made by members of the Crime Suppression Unit at Will Rogers park, located at Cannon and Lamitas in Beverly Hills.

Jake Brennan (24:16)

The undercover cop who slipped into the Will Rogers Memorial park restroom with George Michael on April 7, 1998, claimed that George went in first. George insisted it was the other way around. George also insisted that he unzipped his pants and began masturbating only after the other guy did this undercover cop dude. And that claim contradicted the police report that followed, which stated that the cop was not masturbating, but rather simulating urination. And that was rich. George thought if you tried taking a leak while doing all the things that the guy was doing to himself in there, you'd get piss all over your hands. In George's eyes, this was entrapment, plain and simple. But whether or not George's version of what went down was true didn't matter. He knew that he'd never win a game of he said, he said against the Beverly Hills Police Department. Not when this particular task force, a Crime Suppression Unit, would do whatever it took to make arrests and thus justify their existence. After receiving numerous complaints about sexual activity in public toilets, George pled no contest. He was fined $910 and sentenced to therapy, community service, and two years probation. He was also forbidden from going back to Will Rogers Park. That part he could handle. There were other parks, other public toilets, many more fish in that proverbial sea of cruising subculture. But his reckless behavior, his complete disregard for the control he so carefully wielded when it came to his private life had very nakedly revealed his secret to the entire world. And now the press was having a field day with that secret. Zip me up before you go. Go down and outed in Beverly Hills, these were actual headlines from actual publications at the time. But as crushing as I'm sure it was for George Michael to read all these things and to suddenly find himself the butt of every joke from every late night talk show host, and as stupid, that's his word, by the way, as he felt over allowing himself to be well exposed in this particular way. The arrest and his subsequent outing had an unexpected result too. In many ways, it finally gave George the thing he'd sun so earnestly about years earlier. Freedom. I'm a dirty filthy fucker and if you can't deal with it, you can't deal with it. George Michael was taking the opposite approach that he once had when it came to journalists. Now he welcomed them into his house and told them everything. What do you want to know? His boyfriend, Kenny Goss. Open relationship tricks, Rent boys, escorts, whatever you want to call them. Of course he's got a little black book and the wallet to match. Because sex ain't cheap. But you're not paying for the sex, of course that's not what the money's for. The money is to pay. The trick to leave once the sex is over. Just like George was ready for this journalist to leave right now. The guy had gotten a good look at the bag of weed and pills on his coffee table. Of the Harlan Miller painting on his wall titled Incurable Romantic seeks dirty Filthy Whore. Now George's cell phone was blowing up. It was Paul. Paul made adult films and did dirty Ds. Not so dirt cheap. But best of all, right now, Paul had the champagne. If George was willing and able. Champagne being the two's code word for ghb, AKA Liquid ecstasy. An extremely potent drug capable of sending one into a heightened state. State of sexually charged euphoria. Yeah, George was willing and George was able. Let's the journalist hit the bricks. And there was Paul, right on schedule. A travel size shampoo bottle in his hand. George squeezed a few drops of GHB from the bottle into a glass of Coca Cola and drank it down. The drug sent his libido into hyperdrive. Even better, it made her feel beautiful. On ghb, he didn't have to think about young George Michael, the overweight pimply reject. Or so he'd always seen himself. He also didn't have to think about Anselmo and the others he'd lost. Or that straight French playboy. And the others he never had in the first place. The drug made the music vibrate through his body. Each key he touched on the cigarette stained piano, the one previously owned by John Lennon, which George had won at auction for something like £1.5 million. Each key resonated inside of his fingertips and then his palms, his arms, his shoulders, his entire body. GHB supercharged his self esteem each time he left one of his many homes. Like the one Just north of London, in Highgate. From there, he took a path not unlike the one back in Beverly Hills, down a curving hill and into Hampstead Heath, a big park full of bushes and trees where men just like him were looking for sex. The thrill of being caught, the guilt, it was all still there. But seeing as he'd been arrested once already, he was now far more cavalier than ever before. But the thing is, GHB is incredibly addictive. And when you overuse or abuse the drug, it can lead to what's known as a G hole, which is when someone high on GHB just slumps over and checks out, even when they're standing up. And for you, George Michael, you're about to fall into a G hole that won't let you go for the next four years. February 2006. You do some GHB, some marijuana, and then you hit a London club. You leave at 1 1am 30 minutes later, you're found in your Mercedes, stalled out, knocked out, asleep at the wheel. The drugs are found on your person, as is allegedly a studded black leather fetish mask with a zipper on the mouth. So what you think? Live and let live. The cops let you off with a warning. Two months later, it's April. More ghb, more weed. This time you're driving the Range Rover, trying to get back to your house in Highgate, and suddenly there's this fucking Ford Fiesta just parked there. Fuck. You put it in reverse and then in drive. And then. Shit. Where did that little Peugeot come from? Somehow you find your way home and the next morning the cops are at your door asking about the fucked up front end of your Rover parked in the driveway. Five months later, it's September. Your tour starts. Your first tour in 15 years. You're calling it 25 Live to celebrate your quarter century as one of the greatest to ever do it. The tour will stretch out for the next two years and will see you perform 106 shows in 41 countries and gross over $200 million. Every stage you step on, you kill it. You're a professional, which means you can compartmentalize. It also means that you work hard. You play hard, too. On a day off, you tee up ghb, sleeping meds, antidepressant, chase it all with a joint. You can't see straight as your Mercedes tears ass into the night, weaving from one lane to the next destination, Hampstead Heath, to get your rocks off. But you don't make it. You pass out, your Mercedes rolls to a stop, and once again, the cops find you and your trucks. This time they charge you drug possession and driving under the influence. In December, the judge sentences you to community service and a small fine. And she takes away your license for two years. But she doesn't want to interrupt your historic tour, the one that has become the most commercially successful European tour of the year. She knows that tomorrow you're playing the first of two sold out shows at Wembley. You show your gratitude, your capacity for change. I'm glad to put this behind me, you say. Now I'm off to do the biggest show of my life. Big shows and big plans aside, you don't put it behind you. It's still there, the addiction and the kink. You're no longer allowed to be in the front seat of your Mercedes or your Range Rover. But guilt continues to drive your underlying compulsion. In September of 2008, police find you slinking around the public toilet at Hampstead Heath. You look up and suspicious and well, you are fucked up and suspicious. And your well documented reputation precedes you. They search you and find crack cocaine that you swear to God they were tipped off, probably by someone who wants you to go to rehab. Jesus. Elton John should mind his own fucking business. You aren't in the market for salvation or for Elton John. Pity. It's all self loathing and bad habits. Soon you can legally drive your car again. And much to no one's surprise, once again you crash it. Though this time not into a bunch of parked cars. This time you put your Rover through the facade of a one hour Photoshop in North London. The engine is still running when you're woken up by a police officer banging on the driver's side window. And a few days later, someone writes wham. On the part of the storefront where you crashed your car. But you're not laughing. Because now on this, your seventh arrest in 12 years. Yes, years. Even though it's all been a blur and felt like mere months now, a judge is describing a new kind of penalty. Not just another fine and another loss of your license. There's something else. You're going to prison. By 2010, MTV was a shell of its former self. Gone were the days of non stop music video programming of Prince and Madonna and Michael Jackson, every hour on the hour and of MTV News, anchored for years by Kurt Loder. So there was no news coverage to be found on MTV on September 14th of that year, when 47 year old George Michael, Grammy winner, best selling artist of 1988, biggest grossing European tour headliner of 2006 and 2000, 2007, owner of multiple luxury homes throughout the world and one of the horniest MTV artists to ever live, was strip searched, given a nondescript inmate uniform, and led down the dank and disgusting hallways of HM Prison Pentonville. Located in North London, Pentonville was no joke. The men's prison was infamous. It housed rapists, murderers and pedophiles. It was crawling with roaches and rodents. George was led by guards to the Vulnerable Prisoners Unit, which was for, quote, sex offenders and people who have committed serious crimes. His arrival was anticipated just as it had been years ago in places like Wembley and Rio. Only now his audience was out. Not for his voice, his music, or his sex, but out for his blood. The voices of incarcerated men, violent men, men at their absolute lowest, echoed through the prison halls. Where's George Michael? Bring us George Michael. George was terrified as he was led inside his cell. He kept his head down and kept to himself. Normally, the company of strange men loitering around toilets would have turned him on, but this, this was different. The very thought of going to prison had been enough to scare him. Sober, he actually detached, detoxed while awaiting sentencing. But now that he was on the inside, it was even worse than he could have ever imagined. Luckily, only the first three nights of his two week prison sentence would be here at Pentonville. The rest would be served two hours away in Suffolk at High Point Prison, where George slept in the good behavior wing, played pool, received get well letters from Elton John and Paul McCartney, and on the day he left, signed autographs for for every staff member and prisoner, a free and for now, clean George Michael got to work on what was next, which was Symphonica, a live album documenting an orchestral tour of originals and covers he'd made in 2011 and 2012. Sober, George was all nice suits and button down shirts. His once trademark good hair had been buzzed down tight with a salt and pepper goatee to match. Even before he hit 50 years old, he was playing the elder statesman type. But a new lease on life, a new swell of creativity, a prison stint, detox therapy, a handwritten letter from a beetle. These are things that happen in hopes that they take hold and inspire not just change, but sustained change. And that doesn't always happen because sometimes there's something that takes hold even stronger. Whether it's a kink or a compulsion or an addiction, one driven by habit or by some deep seated psychological trauma. And look, I'm clearly not Sigmund Freud here and I'm not kink or compulsion shaming either. We all have something some more destructive than others, of course. And obviously George Michael had the kind of demons that you couldn't cast out by two weeks in a jail cell. A sex icon for the ages, an icon for the gay community at large, a man who owned numerous pieces of luxury property and lived the sort of life that most of us will only dream of. With all that, he was never able to feel as sexy as he was seen by others. And so he was back to texting his friend Paul, back to asking for delivery of champagne, AKA ghb, back to a manufactured sense of sexiness, back in that G hole, unconscious this time, not behind the wheel, but in his bathtub, where an overdose sent him straight to the emergency room. Two years later, George Michael was dead at 53 years old, discovered by his latest boyfriend on Christmas Day. The official conclusion was natural causes stemming from a heart disease that makes it difficult for your body to pump blood. But considering that his family chose to withhold the toxicology report, and also considering that he died completely alone at some point on Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning, it's entirely possible that it was a less medical and more emotional affliction of the heart that did end. George Michael, once one of the biggest stars on the planet. And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. All right, thanks for getting kinky with me in this episode. This week's question of the week is how many times have you had sex in a public toilet? No, that's obviously not the question of the week. The question is, which 1980s MTV era artist is your favorite? Is it Mr. George Michael, or is it someone else who best defines the era for you? In why I Want to Know, hit me up at 617-906-6638. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text. Hear your answer on the After Party bonus episode coming up right after this one. And you can also send your answers to me @gracelandpod on Instagram x and Facebook. Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and win some free merch. Alright, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening, as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and.

George Michael (40:37)

Review the show and follow us on.

Jake Brennan (40:39)

Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla.

Snoop Dogg (40:52)

He's a bad, bad man.