I was approached by this guy Chris Renshaw, who had read my book and had read Leigh's book. He wanted to incorporate both characters - he probably felt Leigh wasn't famous enough and he realized Leigh [Bowery] and I were associated.

Leigh [Bowery] affected a posh English voice and elongated his vowels, and you never knew if he was being sincere or mocking you. If I ever commented on one of his outfits he would snip, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Boy George. I do value your opinion." And then he would spin and make some ridiculous noise and mince off.

In fact, he [George Michael] was loitering in public loos like some pre-war homosexual. It's one thing to keep quiet. It's another to pretend you're someone you're not.

Karma chameleon: we come and go, we come and go.

You're lucky if you reach the point where you go, "OK, I have a wonderful life ...I fly around the world, stay in beautiful places, people are generally quite sweet to me, what's to complain about?" But I think you have to get there... And it's taken me the best part of 54 years to reach that point where I'm like, "I'm very lucky, I'm lucky, I'm blessed" - all of those things. I wish I could impart that to other people but I think when you're young, you just don't listen.

Every freak has a mother. When I met Marilyn Manson I was struck by how nice he was. People are rarely as weird as you anticipate. Except for Courtney Love-who reminded me of that mad snake in The Jungle Book.

I felt that making records in a traditional way - putting them out in the same way, wasting loads of money - was just a pointless exercise.