George Michael

George Michael (born June 25, 1963) is a British pop singer, who was with the pop group Wham in the 1980s. His real name is Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou.

He was involved in a court case[?] concerning his record contract after his record company CBS was taken over by Sony.

He is also well known for his 1998 arrest for "engaging in a lewd act" in a public restroom in a Beverly Hills city park. He was arrested by an undercover Beverly Hills police officer named Marcelo Rodriguez.

George Michael: "Well, I was followed into the restroom, and then, this cop - well, I didn't know he was a cop at the time obviously – he started playing this game. I think it's called ‘I'll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I'm gonna nick you!'" [1] (http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/people/110998pe.htm)

After pleading "no contest" to the charge, Michael was fined $810 and was given 80 hours community service[?]. After that incident, he became openly homosexual. Soon afterwards, Michael made a video for his single "Outside" which was clearly based on the public restroom incident and which featured men dressed up as policemen kissing. Rodriguez, the police officer, claimed that this video "mocked" him, and also that Michael had slandered him in interviews, and in 1999 filed a ten million dollar lawsuit against the singer. It was originally dismissed by a court in California on the grounds that public officials such as police officers were not entitled to sue, but this decision was overruled by an appeals court[?] on December 3, 2002.

Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Albums 1.1 As part of Wham! 1.2 As a solo artist 2 External links

Albums

As part of Wham!

• Fantastic
• Make it big
• The final
• The best of Wham

As a solo artist

• Faith
• Listen without prejudice
• Five live (with Queen & Lisa Stansfield)
• Older
• Songs from the last century

External links

• Official website (http://www.aegean.net/)
• "George Michael faces $10m lawsuit (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/446721.stm)" - BBC News article, dated Tuesday, September 14, 1999
• "George Michael video case dismissed (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/646004.stm)" - BBC News article, by Peter Bowes, dated Thursday, February 17, 2000
• "Officer allowed to sue Michael (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2542097.stm)" - BBC News article, dated Wednesday, December 4, 2002