There's not another drug in life that I'm glad I took but grass.

I lost my partner [Anselmo Feleppa] to HIV then it took about three years to grieve; then after that I lost my mother. I felt almost like I was cursed.

I probably owe an apology to fans that have been supportive and have not wanted to believe any of this was true. It takes a little bit of the sheen off of the mystique.

The thing that's weird is that we thought it was funny. We expected people to get the joke - that we [with Andrew Ridgeley] were two guys really making asses of ourselves.

It's quite simple: I managed it by doing away with Wham!'s duo image. Obviously, the way I looked changed and that helped a little, but I still have a very pop image. It's a very video-friendly image. I find it a lot more real. It's a lot closer to who I am than the whole Wham! thing.

The only difficulty is that I'm playing to two audiences, and it's too bad the noise detracts from the show, because it's a great show. I've seen my own self out there, and it's a very good musical show. Sometimes the show gets lost in the hysteria and sometimes it doesn't.

I want to make a pop album - something more upbeat than my stuff was in the '90s.