The pop duo kid from North London who outgrew his own fame

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou was born in East Finchley in 1963, the only son and youngest child of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer. He grew up mostly in Kingsbury, London, and he told the BBC's Desert Island Discs that his interest in music followed a head injury around the age of eight. In 1981 he formed Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley, and the name that would fill stadiums later was George Michael.

The early years came quickly. In 1984 he took part in Band Aid's UK number-one single “Do They Know It's Christmas?”, and in 1985 he performed at Live Aid. His debut solo album, Faith, followed in 1987. It won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, one of the best-selling albums of all time. Hits like “Careless Whisper”, “Father Figure” and “Freedom! '90” were joined later by “Jesus to a Child” and “Fastlove”.

The numbers are striking: ten number-one songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 and thirteen on the UK singles chart. The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio between 1984 and 2004. More albums followed, including Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, Older and Patience. Songs such as “Amazing” and the cover “Roxanne” show how far his catalogue reached beyond a single era.

His private life often made headlines. He came out as gay in 1998, and he was an active LGBTQ rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser. His 25 Live tour spanned three years from 2006 to 2008, and in 2011 he fell into a coma after developing pneumonia but recovered. His final concert took place at London's Earls Court in 2012. He died on Christmas Day 2016, and in 2023 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a voice and a songwriter that radio had never really stopped playing.