George Michael Outed; why Stevie Wonder and Stephen Fry are appearing in Channel 4 documentary

A Channel 4 documentary on the life of George Michael screens this evening on the broadcaster, which highlights the pop star’s life after the fallout from his 1998 arrest in Los Angeles and subsequent coming out.

Directed by Michael Ogden, George Michael: Outed is a two part programme that follows Michael’s life as a closeted male during the ‘80s AIDS pandemic, through to his coming out to CNN reporter Jim Moret in the aftermath of a very public, yet very private matter in 1998.

Featuring never before seen clips of George Michael and raw audio interviews around the time of his arrest, Ogden was first approached about making a documentary about the media zoo surrounding the former Wham! singer while on a train to Munich. “Ed Coulthard [executive producer] called me, asking if I wanted to do a documentary about George Michael’s arrest and outing in 1998 - it immediately struck a chord with me as something I remembered as a young gay teenager in the 90s,” Ogden told Smooth Radio.

"I hadn’t come out at the time and was terrified and unsure what to do. And I could remember the clamour at the time of his arrest, but mostly I remembered the song ‘Outside’ - I secretly loved it and LOVED the video.

The documentary also talks to several people close to George Michael throughout his life, including former partner Kenny Goss and his one time business manager Andros Georgiou. There are also some interesting names featured in the documentary too - including Stevie Wonder and Stephen Fry.

Peopleworld takes a look at some of the names set to be featured across the two-part documentary, airing this evening at 9pm on Channel 4, followed by part 2 airing at the same time next week.

Stevie Wonder

You might think that Stevie Wonder’s appearance in the documentary will amount to nothing more than a talking head who knew of George Michael through rubbing shoulders with him at various music events over time. However, the relationship between the pair is much deeper than you think.

A 21-year-old George Michael actually dueted with Wonder back in 1985 for a television special honouring the Apollo Theatre in New York’s 50th anniversary. The glitzy NBC event managed to rope in some big names, but at this time Michael was still seen as the teeny-bopper with his pop songs doing well Stateside.

That was until he was brought out by Stevie Wonder to perform ‘Love’s In Need Of Love Today,’ which today is considered one of George Michael’s first steps as a solo artist. He took a second one that evening also, performing ‘Careless Whisper’ with soul legend Smokey Robinson. That song would go on to top the singles charts around the world later in 1985.

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry’s inclusion in the documentary is one that many will be curious to learn more about, given that Fry and George Michael had a falling out which Michael was happy to air publicly during the advent of social media in the ‘00s.

Michael was set to feature in the 2007 documentary Stephen Fry: HIV and Me, but ordered his scenes to be cut from the final edit after the show’s producer made comments Michael found offensive. Posting on his Twitter account, Michael said the spat stemmed from “[...] his producer [saying] something publicly that was such a dreadful lie I thought about legal action. And I was shocked that, given the nature of our friendship until then, Stephen never called me to explain or distance himself from the liar.”

"I was just terribly hurt that yet another gay man seemed happy to let me hang out to dry for the entertainment of homophobes. Having said that, I still think Stephen is a lovely man... and a huge talent."

Fry, ever the technophile, took to the microblogging website to reach out to George Michael; “George, I’m very distressed to think that something when (sic) wrong over the doc (documentary). All I knew was that you’d decided not to be included in the doc. That’s literally all I know. Is there more? So sorry to see you upset about this. Do email xxx”

Olly Alexander

The It’s A Sin actor and singer Olly Alexander may not have had a personal relationship with George Michael, but much in the same vein that Will Young opens up about Michael being a positive gay role model for a teenager growing up worried about being homosexual, Alexander is asked to draw from his experience as a young homosexual male in the eyes of the press.

The filmmakers at one stage show Alexander the front pages of several tabloid newspaper and gossip magazines to reveal the furore over Michael’s arrest and sordid details of his sex life before he came out to CNN. “We took him original copies of the newspapers from 1998 to film,” Ogden told Smooth Radio. “I think he was stunned by the language used - the shaming of George, the lecturing of him, the triumphalism in the idea of George’s downfall.”

Neil Wallis

Speaking of the press, it’s interesting also that a number of former editors of the News of the World and The S*n also agreed to appear on the programming - for the most part, early reviewers have indicated, to denounce their action at the time and to offer explanations over public interest in private celebrity matters.

Former deputy editor at The Sun, Neil Wallis, is one of those appearing in the documentary series; Pinknews refers to one segment where Wallis explains why he thought the hounding of George following the toilet incident was justifiable, suggesting that his hidden sexuality and sexual behaviour were a tale of “hypocrisy.”

“It’s about the language used, isn’t it?” Ogden told the LGBTQIA+ publication regarding the inclusion of news editors and reporters. “Because it’s all about shame. And the language about how being gay is seen as a shameful act. That was always there with the AIDS crisis, it was a moral judgement made against gay people,” Ogden says.”