George Michael Wanted to Come Out in the Early ’80s But Was Talked Out Of It

In the new Netflix documentary Wham!, which began streaming today, singer George Michael reveals he very nearly came out as a gay man in the early years of his career—but was ultimately talked out of doing so by his bandmate, Andrew Ridgeley, and Ridgeley’s ex-girlfriend, Shirlie Kemp. As a result, he stayed in the closet for well over a decade.

Directed by Chris Smith, Wham! tells the story of Micheal and Ridgeley’s four-year journey from nobodies to pop superstars. The documentary features separate audio interviews of Michael and Ridgely, the former of which was mostly taken from Michael’s interviews with BBC Radio 1 DJ, Mark Goodier. Michaels died suddenly of heart failure in 2016, when he was just 53 years old. So when producer Simon Halfon discovered these candid BBC interviews, it was a major breakthrough for the film. “It felt like you were having lunch with George again,” Halfon said in an interview for the movie’s production notes. “He was talking about his childhood, his school, his meeting Andrew, the demo…everything that we were touching upon.”

Those interviews featured Michaels speaking frankly about his sexuality, including his recollection of the moment he came out to his Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley. Ridgeley, who is now 60, remembers the day vividly, recalling the morning in 1983 when Michaels called him into his hotel room for an important conversation. “Yog was in bed,” Ridgeley recalls in his own interview, using his nickname for Michaels. “He gave Shirlie [Kemp, Ridgeley’s ex-girlfriend and a close friend to both men] a quick glance, and he said to me, ‘Didn’t know how to tell you this, but I’m gay. If not gay, bisexual.'”

Ridgeley says Michaels’s sexuality didn’t matter to him, but nonetheless, he advised his friend not to come out. Michaels remembers that conversation with Ridgeley as “pivotal.” “I said I was going to talk to my mum and dad, and was persuaded in no uncertain terms that it really wasn’t the best idea. I don’t think they were trying to protect my career, or their careers, I think they were literally just thinking of my dad,” Michaels said with a laugh. “When you’re 19, you look at your parents and think, ‘Oh, don’t tell your dad, my god! Your dad’ll hit the roof!'”

That was exactly Ridgeley’s state of mind. “We felt he just couldn’t tell his dad,” he confirms in his audio interview. “We were 19, 20 years old. Our perspective was a little narrow-er.”

But Michaels says he regrets taking his friends’ advice. “The three of us were just so close at the time, but I’d really, really asked the wrong people. That is a pivotal moment. At that point in time, I really did—I really wanted to come out. And then I lost my nerve completely.”

Michael did eventually come out to the public over ten years later, on live TV in 1998, via a CNN interview with reporter Jim Moret. “I want to say that I have no problem with people knowing that I’m in a relationship with a man right now,” Michael told Moret in that interview, before going on to say, “I’m a very proud man. I want people to know that I have not been exposed as a gay man in any way that I feel… I don’t feel any shame for… I feel stupid and I feel reckless and weak for having allowed my sexuality to be exposed this way, but I don’t feel any shame whatsoever. And neither do I think I should.”