Little Boy lost

PROFILE: BOY GEORGE

IT PUTS a whole new perspective on his hit: 'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?' Last week Boy George, the androgynous pin-up of the New Romantic movement, was found guilty of falsely imprisoning a male escort after a naked S&M photo shoot. It is hard to picture the effete singer – whose high cheekbones and fine features were the perfect palate for the layers of foundation and kaleidoscope eye shadow during the Eighties – wielding a metal chain at a man he suspected of tampering with his computer. But in a scene more reminiscent of Pulp Fiction than his pop videos, Boy George is said to have kicked and punched naked Norwegian Audun Carlsen before handcuffing him to a radiator.

It was not, of course, the first time the 47-year-old, real name George O'Dowd, had found himself on the wrong side of the law. His drug use – cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, he's dabbled in them all – has led to a clutch of arrests and negative tabloid stories. And it's only a couple of years since the faded pop star was forced to don an orange jumpsuit to collect street rubbish after police investigating false reports of a burglary in his flat claimed to have found 13 bags of cocaine (the drugs charges were dropped in exchange for a £1,000 fine and five days' community service for wasting police time).

But this is the first time the pseudo-Buddhist and Feng Shui guru has done anything you could describe as vicious, and it's difficult to reconcile it with the image of him as an eccentric, egotistical, but essentially well-meaning pop icon. For all his rebellion and screaming queen cattiness – he called Matt Lucas "a niggly diva", and George Michael a "pre-war homosexual" – Boy George has never really come across as truly malicious, more as someone who is lost and lonely. In the past, when his loose tongue has led to public spats, he has expressed remorse and pledged to keep his mouth in check – until the next time he has a bitchy opinion he needs to share.

But then the pop star who once sang "I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction" really is a chameleon, changing hue so often it's difficult to gain a reliable picture of him. He considers himself a spiritual being, devouring New Age books, yet spends up to six hours a day surfing gay internet sites. While in the grip of his drug addiction, he stuck to a strict macrobiotic diet. And even when it comes to his sexuality – the expression of which is at the core of his public persona – he sends out mixed messages. When Russell Harty asked him if he liked sex, he famously said he "preferred a nice cup of tea", while on another occasion he said he was bisexual, adding that when "I want sex, I pay for it".

There is little in Boy George's childhood to explain his inconsistency, or his chronic insecurity. Born into a poor and fairly volatile family, he has nothing but praise for his mother Dinah, who left Dublin for London in the late Fifties, with a baby in tow, before hooking up with builder Jeremiah O'Dowd, with whom she had five more children. While his three brothers were typical lads, Boy George loved Shirley Bassey and dipping into his mother's make-up bag. In his autobiography, Take It Like A Man, he describes the sense of isolation he felt, growing up the "pink sheep" of the family, yet when he told his macho father he was gay, dad barely batted an eyelid.

"I spent years trying to be nothing like my dad and as I get older, I realise how similar we really are," he has said. "I can be very selfish and jealous just like he was, but then I also have his generosity and ability to talk the legs and hooves off a donkey."

After being expelled from school, Boy George became a drag queen and a fixture on the punk scene. There, he was spotted by Malcolm McLaren, who asked him to sing in his band Bow Wow Wow. But then, in 1981, he met and fell in love with drummer Jon Moss and together they formed Culture Club. George describes his relationship with Moss, who always insisted he was straight, as "six years of sheer misery and heartache". But out of that angst came a succession of hits, including 'I'll Tumble 4 You', 'The Church Of The Poison Mind' and 'Karma Chameleon', the biggest-selling single of 1983.

For a few years, Boy George's white soul voice dominated the airwaves, but then everything went horribly wrong. The singer started hanging out with goth star Marilyn Manson, taking ecstasy, then heroin. Soon the world knew he was hooked, and public figures such as Anthony Burgess were calling for his arrest – a request that was readily granted.

Culture Club's next two albums – Waking Up With The House On Fire and From Luxury To Heartache – bombed and, for a while, Boy George seemed to be cursed. First his friend, Mark Vaultier, died after a methadone and valium overdose at a party and then Culture Club keyboardist Michael Rudetski was found dead of a heroin overdose in Boy George's house in London.

When the band split up, Boy George went solo, producing hits such as 'Everything I Own' and 'Reborn'. But trying to perform while high on drugs took its toll and by the Nineties, his early success had all but vanished. Not one to sit around feeling sorry for himself, he turned his hand to other things, carving himself a second career as a DJ and starring in the musical Taboo, based on his life. The show was a success and Boy George was nominated for a Tony award. But his personal life continued to falter.

While living in Manhattan for the short-lived New York run of Taboo in 2006, he was arrested after calling the police to the non-existent burglary – an act he says was born out of paranoia. Then, when he moved back to the UK, he got himself in more serious trouble with the male escort.

One of the most fascinating things about Boy George is his ability to retain his optimism in a crisis. Earlier this year, while awaiting his trial, he released a new single 'Yes We Can', which tapped into the hype surrounding Barack Obama's election campaign. The song – which combined the plea: "Please forgive these crimes against myself" with snatches of Obama's speeches, was pure Boy George in its self-obsession. "I was deeply moved and motivated by Obama's 'Yes We Can' speech and I used it as a metaphor for personal change, as there have been huge changes in my own life in the past year," he said.

Unfortunately for Boy George, there look likely to be more changes ahead. Although he has not yet been sentenced for false imprisonment, the judge has indicated it is likely he will go to jail. Will this mark the last of Boy George's scrapes with the law and his transition to adulthood? Last year he said: "I don't ever want to see a policeman again." Then again, one look at the singer in gilded lily mode makes his resolution to become "a shrinking violet" a trifle unattainable. There are some colours even a chameleon can't change.