Boy George has written that he’s “never gonna be friends” with Janet Jackson, calling her “unfriendly” in his new memoir, Karma: The Definitive Autobiography.The Culture Club singer, whose autobiography was released in November 2023, wrote about his first encounter with contemporary Janet Jackson.
The pair met backstage while taping an episode for the American music variety show, Solid Gold, in 1983.Recounting that he approached her “without [his] face on”, George stated that Jackson did not return his congeniality. “She wasn’t friendly and didn’t try to be,” he wrote. “But I just walked off and got myself into my best ‘Boy George’ and was walking around backstage to make sure I was seen by everyone.”He added that when a cameraman later approached him for a message to leave Jackson, he said: “Next time you meet someone, be nice.” Afterward, when George was ushered to Jackson’s dressing room, Jackson stated that she did not recognise him earlier, which prompted him to ask: “‘Are you saying you would have been nice to me if you knew who I was?’ We parted on awkward terms.”George’s first encounter with Jackson was not the only recollection of a run-in with her in the book.
He also noted that when he ran into her on an episode of Top Of The Pops, the ‘Rhythm Nation’ singer “looked straight to him”.In an interview with People magazine, George stated that he had no issues publicly disclosing his negative encounters with fellow stars. “When you write a book like this, there’s a chance you’re going to bump into someone that you’ve written about,” he told the publication.“I have to say what I’ve written about people is the truth of what happened and how they behaved.
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