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Victoria Beckham

Victoria Caroline Beckham (born 17 April 1974)  is an English fashion designer, singer, and television personality. She rose to prominence in the 1990s as a member of the girl group the Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Posh Spice. With over 100 million records sold worldwide, the group became the best-selling female group of all time. After the Spice Girls split in 2001, Beckham was signed to Virgin Records, in which she released her self-titled debut solo album, which produced two UK Top 10 singles. Beckham has also become an internationally recognised style icon and fashion designer. She is married to former association football player David Beckham, and they have four children, including Brooklyn and Romeo. As of May 2019, the couple's joint wealth is estimated at £355 million.

Beckham has starred in five official documentaries and reality shows, including Victoria's Secrets (2000), Being Victoria Beckham (2002), The Real Beckhams (2003), Victoria Beckham – A Mile In Their Shoes (2004), and Victoria Beckham: Coming to America (2007). She has since made a cameo appearance in an episode of Ugly Betty (2007), and been a guest judge on Project Runway (2008), Germany's Next Topmodel (2009), and American Idol (2010).

Following high-profile collaborations with other brands, she launched an eponymous label in 2008, and a lower-priced (diffusion) label in 2011. The Victoria Beckham label was named designer brand of the year in the UK in 2011; in 2012 the brand was assessed as the star performer in the Beckham family's business interests. Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2011, Belinda White noted that the transition from WAG to fashion designer had been more successful than most had predicted, saying: "She has gathered a significant celebrity following and won over the scathing fashion pack who now clamour for a ticket to her bi-annual show at New York Fashion Week." Beckham was appointed an OBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to the fashion industry.

Early life
Beckham was born Victoria Caroline Adams on 17 April 1974 at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, England, and raised in Goffs Oak, Hertfordshire. She is the eldest of three children of Jacqueline Doreen (née Cannon), a former insurance clerk and hairdresser, and Anthony William Adams, who worked as an electronics engineer, and drove a Rolls-Royce, something she would later dispute. They founded an electronics wholesale business which allowed a comfortable upbringing for Victoria, her sister, Louise, and her brother, Christian Adams. Beckham's great-great-great-grandfather was German artist and revolutionary Carl Heinrich Pfänder and her great-great granduncle was Minnesota politician William Pfaender.

After watching the musical film Fame in 1980, she decided to pursue a musical career. Jacqueline and Anthony Adams enrolled her at Jason Theatre School. In 1991, Beckham entered Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom, Surrey and studied dance and modelling. Beckham attended St. Mary's High School in Cheshunt, where she was embarrassed by her family's wealth and often begged her father not to drop her off outside the school in their Rolls-Royce. Eventually, she became a member of a band called Persuasion.

1994–2000: Spice Girls
Beckham auditioned for a March 1994 advertisement in The Stage which required girls who were "street smart, extrovert[ed], ambitious and able to sing and dance". In 1994, Beckham joined the all-female group, the Spice Girls. In the recordings before her marriage, she is credited with her maiden name as Victoria Adams. The group's first single was called "Wannabe" (1996), and she worked alongside Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton, Mel B and Melanie C. It went to number one in the United Kingdom and United States, and another 35 countries. It was followed by eight further number one singles from their albums Spice, Spiceworld and Forever. Each member of the group received a nickname from the media and Beckham was named "Posh Spice". The group is the best-selling female group of all time, selling over 80 million records worldwide. After the release of their third album, Forever, which charted at number two in the UK but was far less successful than their previous two albums, the Spice Girls stopped recording, concentrating on their solo careers in regards to their foreseeable future.

2000–2002: Victoria Beckham
On 14 August 2000, Beckham released her first solo single, "Out of Your Mind" in collaboration with Dane Bowers and Truesteppers. The week of release coincided with the release of "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" by Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor, resulting in a chart battle dubbed 'Posh vs. Posher' by the tabloids. Before the single's release, on 8 July 2000, Beckham made her public solo debut at London's Hyde Park at a concert to raise money for the Prince's Trust charity. She sang "Out of Your Mind" to a 100,000-strong audience. Beckham then signed a recording contract with her group label Virgin Records. Her next single as a solo artist, "Not Such An Innocent Girl", was released on 17 September 2001. Again, she faced competition in another hugely hyped chart battle, this time with Kylie Minogue's single "Can't Get You Out of My Head". Despite a huge promotional campaign, Beckham was outsold eight to one, and her single debuted at number 6. Beckham's eponymous debut album, which was released on 1 October 2001, reached Number 10 in the UK album chart. The album cost a reputed £5 million to produce and it sold a modest 50,000 copies.

The second and final single to be released from the album was "A Mind of Its Own" on 11 February 2002. The single reached number 6 in the UK and sold 56,500 copies. Rumours soon spread that Beckham was to be dropped by her label for not charting in the Top Three. These were strongly denied at the time. Beckham commented "You know what newspapers are like, they just like to put all the negative stuff in, but as far as I'm concerned and the record company is concerned it is all great." A third single, "I Wish", was promoted but never materialised. The single version was a remix featuring Robbie Craig, and was performed on TV on Friday Night's All Wright. Following the announcement of Beckham's second pregnancy, the single was shelved. Beckham was reportedly dropped by Virgin Records along with fellow Spice Girls Emma Bunton and Melanie B, but a statement from her publicist denied reports, stating: "No-one has been dropped. The Virgin deal has come to a natural end and both parties have decided not to continue."

2002–2004: Unreleased albums and final solo releases
In 2002, Beckham signed a contract with Telstar Records and 19 Management worth £1.5 million. In 2002, she began recording an electropop-influenced album, tentatively titled Open Your Eyes. However, desiring a more urban sound, she began working with producer Damon Dash the following year on R&B and hip hop influenced tracks for an album tentatively titled Come Together. The Dash-produced track "It's That Simple" featuring M.O.P. premiered on radio stations in July 2003 as a promotional single, generating mixed reviews. Beckham's first single with Telstar, the double A-side "Let Your Head Go" / "This Groove", was released in the UK on 29 December 2003, utilizing one song from both projects: "Let Your Head Go" from Open Your Eyes and "This Groove" from Come Together. The release received heavy promotion and many TV appearances across the Christmas period and charted at number three in the UK. Outside of the UK, Simon Fuller reportedly had planned to market Beckham’s music in the US. In April 2004, Telstar announced bankruptcy and both albums were cancelled, while Beckham, disappointed with wasted time in studio, gave up music to focus on her fashion career. The albums were never released, but have since leaked online in their entirety.

2007–2012: Return of the Spice Girls
In 2007, the Spice Girls reformed and announced plans to embark upon a reunion tour, from which they were said to have earned £10 million each (approximately $20 million). Beckham had previously stated that she and her former Spice colleagues were enjoying their solo careers in various fields, saying "We're all still doing our own thing." Their Greatest Hits album was released in early-November 2007 and the tour began on 2 December 2007. At its advent, Beckham said "I wanted my children to see that Mummy was a pop star. It was the last opportunity for them to stand in a crowd full of people screaming for the Spice Girls." When Beckham had her hair coloured brown for the tour, she stated that her sons immediately reacted by saying "Oh my goodness, it's Posh Spice. She's back."

Film-maker Bob Smeaton directed an official film of the tour titled Spice Girls: Giving You Everything, which was first aired on Fox8 in Australia. It later aired in the UK, on 31 December 2007 on BBC One. As well as their sell-out tour, the Spice Girls were contracted to appear in Tesco advertisements, for which they were paid £1 million each.

In October 2009, reports suggested that the Spice Girls were to star in a reality show in which they would cast female actors to play their roles in a musical. The following year, Judy Craymer teamed up with the Spice Girls and Simon Fuller to start developing a Spice Girls musical titled Viva Forever!. On 26 June 2012, all five Spice Girls were in attendance at a press conference in London to promote the launch of Viva Forever! The musical opened at the West End's Piccadilly Theatre on 11 December 2012. On 12 August 2012, after much speculation, Beckham and the Spice Girls performed a medley of "Wannabe" and "Spice Up Your Life" at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, reuniting solely for the event. Their performance was the most tweeted moment of Olympics closing ceremony with over 116,000 tweets on Twitter per minute.

The band reunited again for a 2019 tour, however Beckham opted not to participate in the reunion choosing to focus on her fashion label instead. When the American television presenter Ellen DeGeneres asked her why she chose not to join with the other Spice Girls for the reunion tour, she said "It just didn't feel like the right thing to do. [But] I'll always be Posh Spice, always."

Fashion
Beckham made a guest appearance on the catwalk for Maria Grachvogel on 17 February 2000, marking her debut as a model at London Fashion Week. Beckham also acted as a British ambassador for Dolce and Gabbana and was briefly the face of Rocawear in 2003. Beckham designed a limited-edition fashion line for Rock & Republic called VB Rocks in 2004, consisting mainly of jeans for the high end of the market, retailing at approximately $300 in the US.

On 16 January 2006, Beckham walked the runway for Roberto Cavalli at Milan Fashion Week, and was for a period exclusively dressed by him for red-carpet and social events. For the March 2006 issue of Harper's Bazaar, Beckham acted as fashion editor when she styled her close friend, Katie Holmes, for a fashion shoot. She has admitted to a personal love of sunglasses, saying "I'm quite obsessed with sunglasses. I collect vintage Guccis and Carreras – they can make virtually any outfit look cool." After Beckham's departure from Rock & Republic, in September 2006, she furthered her fashion ventures by launching her own denim label, dvb Style. Beckham then launched a new official website, dvbstyle.com to promote her fashion work.

On 14 June 2007, Beckham launched dvb Denim collection in New York at Saks Fifth Avenue, along with unveiling her eyewear range in the United States for the first time. In the same month, Beckham made her first appearance at London's annual Graduate Fashion Week as a judge alongside Glenda Bailey (editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar) and Lanvin's Alber Elbaz, to choose the winner of the River Island Gold Award, worth £20,000. In August 2007, Intimately Beckham perfume was launched into US stores, one of more than 20 perfumes she and David Beckham have introduced over the years. In September 2007 her cosmetics line V-Sculpt was launched in Tokyo. In a 2007 appearance at an LA Galaxy press conference, Beckham is credited with having popularised Roland Mouret's 'moon dress' and his brand, and Beckham was also the face of Marc Jacobs for his Spring 2008 collection.

Beckham has graced countless fashion magazine covers during her career, including I-D in 2004 and W in 2007. Her first Vogue appearance was the April 2008 British edition. This was followed by Vogue India, Vogue Paris as well as the German, Russian, Australian, Turkish, Taiwanese, Chinese and Spanish editions. Beckham has also graced various international editions of Harper's Bazaar and Elle. On 17 July 2018, Victoria's collection of her Reebok collaboration was launched.

Launch of fashion label
Beckham's eponymous label was launched in September 2008 in a low-key presentation. By 2011, it had grown into a fixture of New York Fashion Week and a lower-priced Victoria by Victoria Beckham label was introduced. In the first quarter of 2011–12, it was predicted to generate annual sales of more than £60 million. Known initially for its dresses, the range has expanded into separates and luxury handbags selling at up to £18,000. Alongside the main fashion line and diffusion range, the Victoria Beckham brand still includes separate denim, eyewear and fragrance lines. In November 2011, Victoria Beckham won Designer Brand of the Year at the British Fashion Awards.

In September 2012, Victoria Beckham was the most talked about designer on Twitter during New York Fashion Week, also acquiring 57,000 new followers during the shows according to research by The Whispr Group. Writing in The Independent in February 2014, Alexander Fury described how Victoria Beckham had made the transition from novelty to respected designer, citing her recent guest editorship of French Vogue and forthcoming participation in a panel discussion with the dean of Parsons design school in New York. The article concluded that the brand's sales were down to the appeal of the designs themselves, not the celebrity association.

In 2017, Beckham's new collection for Target featured a wide range of sizes from XS to 3X for women. Beckham also introduced a new line for children's wear. In 2018, the collection was presented at London Fashion Week instead of at New York Fashion Week as normal. In 2019, a spokesperson for the brand confirmed that the line would remain fur-free, and announced that as of the autumn/winter collection, it would also be free of any exotic skins.

Business difficulties
Despite her high social profile, her fashion brand has not been a business success. In 2018 the label was losing £4,000 a day. In November 2019, the BBC reported that "Victoria Beckham's fashion business has posted another annual loss as demand for the former Spice Girl's high end clothes "plateaued". Victoria Beckham Limited, which has not made a profit since it launched in 2008, reported a loss of £12.3m for 2018. Sales slipped 16% to £35m, amid weaker wholesale demand. Chairman Ralph Toledano said sales of clothing and accessories had levelled off after years of growth. "The performance was in line with expectations, so we were not surprised. Our goal is to reach profitability as soon as possible," he told trade journal Business of Fashion. Mrs Beckham launched her label in 2008 with a collection of luxury dresses, and now sells fashion and accessories in more than 400 stores around the world." In 2022, Beckham's fashion label was £54 million in debt.

Victoria Beckham Beauty
In September 2019, Beckham launched the beauty brand "Victoria Beckham Beauty". Together with co-founder Sarah Creal, she showcased the brand at London Fashion Week. Secondary packaging of the makeup is made from 100% post-consumer waste, while shipping materials are either recyclable or biodegradable. Beckham has described it as "active and effective, but clean and kind." The brand's first line of products was eye makeup, and included eye liner, individual eye shadows, and an eye shadow palette. A line of lip products, comprising a lip tint and waterproof lip pencils, was released the following month.

Television
Beckham has shot five official documentaries. The first, dated 11 January 2000, was called Victoria's Secrets, a programme only shown in the UK on Channel 4. It involved Beckham being followed by cameras while also discussing and interviewing other British celebrities, such as Elton John. The second, Being Victoria Beckham, was broadcast in March 2002 and saw Beckham discussing her career as a solo artist with the release of her first album, and also showed her at various photo shoots and recording sessions. The documentary attracted a strong audience of 8.83 million, coming top in its timeslot. One critic described her as "so clearly level-headed, happy with her not inconsiderable lot and seemingly unfazed by the madly intrusive nature of her monumentally ridiculous fame". The third, The Real Beckhams, aired on 24 December 2003 on ITV1 and focused on the Beckhams' move to Madrid from London after David Beckham was signed to Real Madrid. In those years, she suffered a jealousy attack and had a fight in a gym with Ana Obregón because her husband David and Ana had been sending phone messages. It also featured Victoria Beckham re-launching her solo career and showed her mocking the tabloid stories she reads in the paper every day. The special received an audience of 6.10 million viewers and was later released on DVD on 2 February 2004.

The fourth was titled Full Length & Fabulous: The Beckhams' 2006 World Cup Party, and followed Victoria and David Beckham organising and making preparations to host a 2006 World Cup Party at a marquee in the grounds of their mansion in Hertfordshire, which aimed to raise money for their charity. Two tickets to attend the ball were auctioned on-line for charity, and sold for £103,000. The documentary aired on 28 May 2006 and showed the event itself, where the menu was designed, especially by friend and chef Gordon Ramsay, and the charity auction was hosted by Graham Norton. Ramsay catered for 600 guests, with the aid of 40 chefs and 100 waiting staff. The ITV documentary attracted an average of 7.56 million viewers.

To document Victoria Beckham's preparations for her family's move to the US, she signed a deal with NBC for six episodes of a half-hour unscripted reality TV series. Despite original plans for six episodes, the show was cut to a one-hour special only as there "just wasn't enough (material) for a series." The show, called Victoria Beckham: Coming to America, aired on 16 July 2007 in the US and Canada. It was heavily scrutinised by the American media and critics, with the New York Post describing it as "an orgy of self-indulgence" and also describing Beckham as "vapid and condescending". The programme was the third-most-watched programme in its time-slot and received viewing figures of 4.9 million in the US, beaten by a repeat of Wife Swap and two sitcoms. The programme aired in Britain on 17 July 2007 on ITV with 3.84 million viewers tuning in. The programme was produced by Simon Fuller who managed her and the Spice Girls on their come-back tour.

In July 2007, it was announced that Beckham would shortly begin filming a cameo appearance as herself in an episode of the second season of ABC's TV series Ugly Betty. The episode, "A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding", aired on 9 November 2007 in the United States and on 23 November in the United Kingdom. Despite her forays into television, Beckham has denied plans to embark upon a Hollywood movie career. In February 2008, it was revealed that Beckham would be the guest judge for the finale of fourth season of Project Runway, which aired on 5 March 2008 in the US.

It was reported in October 2007 that Beckham had turned down the opportunity to appear in Sex and the City: The Movie. She stated in an interview: "[I was] asked to be in the Sex and the City film, which I would have loved to have done, but because I am in full-on Spice Girls rehearsal mode, unfortunately, I can't do it." In 2010, Beckham voiced Queen Amphitrite in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. She said it was thrilling to get the invitation, as her children were fans of the show.

Books
On 13 September 2001, Beckham released her first book, Learning to Fly. The title was taken from a line in a song from the musical Fame, which Beckham had enjoyed as a child. The verse that inspired the title was: "I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly". The autobiography documents her childhood, time during the Spice Girls, her marriage and family life, as well as her career at the time.

Learning to Fly became the third best-selling non-fiction title of 2001 and the total UK sales stand at more than 500,000 copies. When the book was first released, it went to Number 1 in the book charts after four weeks of release, relegating Robbie Williams' book to second place. A high-profile guest appearance on Parkinson, watched by nine million people, helped to promote the book. Hello!, Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday joined to buy the rights to preview and serialise the book before its publication. The figure paid was thought to be near £1 million.

Beckham was quoted by a Spanish journalist in 2005 as saying: "I've never read a book in my life". She later explained this was a mistranslation from the original Spanish in which the interview was printed, saying she actually stated that she never had time to finish reading a book because she was always too busy looking after her children.

Beckham's second book, a fashion advice guide titled That Extra Half an Inch: Hair, Heels and Everything in Between, was published on 27 October 2006. That Extra Half an Inch: Hair, Heels and Everything in Between includes tips from Beckham on fashion, style and beauty, and also contains photography by Mario Testino, Annie Leibovitz and Steven Meisel. The book became another best-seller, and has sold 400,000 copies in Britain alone since it was published in hardcover. The rights have since been sold to the United States, the Netherlands, Japan, Portugal, Lithuania, Russia, and, most recently, China.

Power and influence
In 2007 Beckham was the 52nd richest woman in Britain and the 19th richest person in Britain with husband David, with an estimated joint wealth of £112 million ($225 million). According to The Guardian, Beckham Ventures, a company linked to the Victoria Beckham fashion business, was the best performing brand in the family's three businesses in 2012, coming close to matching turnover in a sister company that promotes the David Beckham brand.

In 2010, Beckhams's charity work with Save the Children was nominated for the Do Something With Style Award, an awards show, produced by VH1. She is a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Beckham promotes faux/synthetic furs. Her stand against the fur industry generated praise from animal rights organisations, including PETA. Beckham has stated that she is "supportive of its [PETA's] high-profile anti-fur campaigns," and pledged "never to work with fur in any of her own fashion collections". In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK in the fashion category by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. In 2014, Beckham joined the Ban Bossy campaign as a spokesperson advocating leadership roles for girls.

Beckham was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to the fashion industry. She stated she was "delighted and humbled for the recognition," which her husband also received in 2003. However, as recipients of honours are sworn to secrecy, and Beckham had announced her honour before the 2017 New Year Honours' official publication, she was criticised for the "betrayal of etiquette" by the Conservative MP Peter Bone.

Personal life
Beckham was engaged to electrician Mark Wood with whom she was in a relationship from 1988 to 1994. She then had a relationship with Canadian actor Corey Haim in 1995, which ended on mutual terms. She collects handbags, and owns over 100 Birkin bags, made by Hermès, including a £100,000 pink one. The full collection is estimated to be worth more than £1.5 million.

Marriage and children
In early 1997 she started dating footballer David Beckham, after they met at a charity football match; prior to this he had watched her music videos and commented to teammates that he was attracted to her, but had been overcome with shyness when they were first introduced. A few months earlier, Victoria had also expressed a wish to meet David during a Spice Girls football photo session (by chance, she wore the kit of his club Manchester United for the feature as the group's manager was a supporter). Of their initial meeting, she said, "I didn't really know who he was. I was never into football." Initially, they kept their relationship out of the public eye. The couple announced their engagement in 1998 and were dubbed "Posh and Becks" by the media.

On 4 July 1999, Victoria and David were married by the Bishop of Cork, Paul Colton, at Luttrellstown Castle, Ireland. The wedding attracted much media coverage. Beckham's teammate, Gary Neville, was the best man, and the couple's four-month-old son Brooklyn was the ring bearer. Most of the media were kept away from the ceremony as an exclusive deal with OK! magazine had been arranged, but photographs were released showing the Beckhams sitting on golden thrones. Victoria wore a diamond coronet created for her by jewellery designer Slim Barrett. A total of 437 staff were employed for the wedding reception, which was estimated to have cost £500,000 (US$823,650).

The couple bought what became their most famous home for £2.5 million in 1999; the property, which is set in 24 acre of land, was given a £3 million renovation and was subsequently dubbed Beckingham Palace by the media. They sold the property in 2014. Victoria and David have four children: sons Brooklyn (born 1999), Romeo (born 2002) and Cruz (born 2005), and a daughter, Harper (born 2011). Elton John and David Furnish are reportedly the godparents of Brooklyn and another son and their godmother is Elizabeth Hurley. Two children were baptized Catholic at Holy Trinity, Chipping Norton; among their godparents were Eva Longoria and Marc Anthony.

Alleged kidnap and death threats
In January 2000, a tip-off to Scotland Yard detectives exposed a plot to kidnap Victoria and Brooklyn Beckham and hold them at a house in Hampstead, London. The family was then moved to a secret location, but no arrests were made. In March of that year, she received a death threat prior to performing at the Brit Awards with the Spice Girls, and at the show's rehearsal, a red laser light appeared on her chest and she was rushed off stage. After a fire door was found to be lodged open, it was thought that there had been an assassin there, and Beckham later revealed that she was terrified by the experience. In November 2002, five people were arrested after another plot for her kidnap was infiltrated by a tabloid newspaper. All charges were dropped after a witness was deemed unreliable.

Discography

 * Victoria Beckham (2001)

title: Victoria Beckham


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Talk:Green party/Archive00

This article need a lot of work. It's horribly copyedited, and a disorganized mish-mash of ideas that read more like Green Party brochure copy than simple explanation of what they're about. But now that I think I've done something reasonable with the article titles, work can go on about this article proper, which should be an explanation of the format, organized, four-pillar Green Party. --LDC

--- What you have done with the article titles is to remove any sense of objectivity. The parties described in this article have no monopoly on small-g "green" policy, no monopoly on self-description by large-g "Greens", and no monopoly on what the four pillars are or mean.

The article as it stands is an attempt to explain what "(the Global) Green Parties" are, and how *they* view the four-pillar and their extension to the Ten Key Values, and how *they* currently cooperate. It would not appear to be advocacy if you had not changed the name to imply that they claimed some monopoly on "organized" which they do not claim.

The only thing that the "(Global) Green Parties" claim is that they adhere to some version of the four pillars or core values, they have agreed to some extension of these to the ten key values, and they in general represent the largest single party calling itself "Green" in any one country.

They do not even represent all of the "(Four-Pillar) Green Parties", as not all of these seek to extend the four core values to the ten key values. If I have to distinguish, it will be yet another article.

You are ignoring the list of titles discussed earlier and implications of the use of an adjective, proper or otherwise, ("Green") to describe a pluralized proper noun ("Parties") which is clear in and of itself.

The article title as it stands implies that to be an "O/organized Green Party" you have to pass some test or filter of the global or more specifically "(Global) Green Parties" - if the article implies this anywhere, point it out, it's not true, and it will have to be fixed.

It's exactly and only this claim that prevents this article from simply being what it is, a description of the actual real existing largest "(Global) Green Parties" and their history and ambitions.

I repeat for the Nth time the bug report: wiki's interface should not capitalize entries for terms being described in their generic sense... and titling, as a side issue, must respect normal English conventions.

For instance, your title would be more sensible as:

organized "Green Party" - the quotations would establish the claim of ownership of the term.

But the implication of the singular term "Party" is that this is one group of people with one agenda and one view of major political matters.

That is simply not true. It is a diverse movement of multiple "Parties" with no single global organization or structure, and not even any regular global meetings other than one in Australia so far.

Experienced contributors should know better than to change names of material they simply don't understand.

Oh, grow up. So I picked a name you don't like; fine. You make a good argument that it's a bad name, and I agree, so I'll change it. How about "Global green parties"? It violates our standard naming convention of singular nouns, but since it's an article that specificially deals with a collection of things as a collection, I can live with it. It follows our other naming conventions of being a simple description, capitalized correctly, and doesn't use parentheses for something other than disambiguation by context (Please go read our naming conventions). But you simply have to get over your obsession with the lowercase/uppercase thing: we, as a community, have decided upon naming conventions and software based on how its serves the overall needs of the project; the fact that it's a bit awkward for one small use is no reason to change that. Far better that writing some miniscule minority of articles should be tricky than the encyclopedia as a whole be made confusing and awkward to suit that minority.

--

The old Talk stuff is reproduced here:

This is an attempt to replace the article it is based on, called Green_Party.

None of the points covered in Green_Party have been omitted, although there has been some juggling and restatement and framing.

There is no global "Green Party" so the name of the original is inaccurate. An international Green Party to pursue global posts (as in ICANN At Large or some UN agencies which are proposing global elections using the Internet) has been proposed (in Puerto Allegre by the Italian Greens). If it exists, that is the most correct entry to sit under Green_Party.

The second most correct entry would be to describe http://globalgreens.org and the Global Greens Charter, which is the most extensive consensus of the global Green Parties, and is mentioned in this article.

However, it is a huge claim to say that "Green Parties" are fully represented by the process that took place in Australia - there have been objections to it and those are noted in this article.

I have tried to balance the presentation - some claims are quite improtant to understand what a Green Party *is* - those I have tried to balance cleanly with skeptical counter-claims. I'm not sure who to quote so I stuck to facts where I could.

There's a lot of interpretation of events here. I'd rather rely on citations and would be pleased if some of these points were made by quotations instead.

However, as the initial article met resistance for lack of NPOV, I'd rather get feedback on its scope, and then go digging for the appropriate quotes...

-

I was going to replace "green_party" (small P, singular) with a generic description of the range of non-Green (i.e. not Four Pillar, not Ten Key Value) views and the fact that Green Parties have no monopoly on who is a "green party".

I don't oppose Matt Hammond's views as such, and I find his political analysis refreshing and interesting - the LNSGP is the best example of such a non-Green party that views the green objectives in a radically different way - and they're *honest* which his rare in politics.

There are also the geo-libertarian parties, like the Marijuana Parties in Israel and British Columbia... these are examples of a "green party" I think but they are not Green Parties.

Wiki's stupid capitalize-everything interface is actually at fault for any confusion...

OK, this is now restored and linked properly. LNSGP is mentioned as an example of a non-Four-Pillar Green Party to show they exist, and there is a link to green party where this concept is dealt with in more depth...

PLEASE, if you are a member of one of these Green Parties and do not like the LNSGP or Marijuana parties or whatever, do not censor mention of them nor the use of the "green" label which they often adopt.

There's no reason to believe that "green" (small-g) implies "Four Pillars" or "Ten Key Values" - that's a political assertion of an equivalence and an attempt to control a meaning - those of you who oppose trademarks should maybe think about that...

- If this article's name gets hacked it should get hacked back to "(Four Pillar) Green Parties" or "(the major) Green Parties" or "(the Global) Green Parties". It has to make some reference to their basis of unity, or it isn't going to bring the right readers here.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Green party/Archive00


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Talk:Swastika

This article needs to be fixed
We need to fix this article. And not just say FAQ. Wikipedia is one of the top source for common people. This is actually creating a lot of problems for Hindus in schools and immigrations.

First. We need to dedicate Swastika to Hinduism which is the original source of this and is still widely applicable.

Then we need clear out how Nazi symbol is completely different from Swastika.

Nazi symbol is Hakenkruez not Swastika.

Just like you wouldn't call American Football as Rugby, in the same way you can't call Nazi symbol as Swastika.

I am happy to contribute if someone wants to pair pair up.

https://cohna.org/swastika-is-not-hakenkreuz/ Firedrake123 (talk) 20:19, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia is not here to correct something you think is wrong. Rather, Wikipedia summarizes the mainstream literature about a topic. Your request has no chance of happening. Binksternet (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You should think twice before giving your lecture here it's clearly mention in every German document that Swastika is different and German Nazi symbol hakenkruez is different just because it belongs to Christianity that's why you are not accepting it we have prove and documented old 1930 document and newspaper articles and German published real document on internet sites you can find it easily so I believe Wikipedia good correct it if you don't have information then take it from my account and email you the information then uploaded on Wikipedia don't give miss information about Swastika and hakenkruez
 * Just 100 years ago, in an article dated Nov 21, 1922, the New York Times, in its first ever coverage of Hitler, called his movement the “Hakenkreuz Movement” and referred to his followers as “Hakenkreuzlers.Another 1934 New York Times article, even reported about the Nazi Newspaper, accurately calling it the Hakenkreuz Banner, versus anything related to Swastika.New York Times’ March 1933 coverage of Hitler’s “Hooked Cross.”The popularization of "Swastika" in Media TerminologyHakenkreuzbanner, The Nazi NewspaperIn a similar vein, 1925 edition of The Jewish Daily Bulletin Index (page 14-15), made repeated references to Hitler’s followers as the “Hakenkreuzlers,” documenting their attacks on Jews, women’s groups and more. 18 mentions of this word can be found in the paper.We can also look at the records of the Nazis themselves, who published their own paper in Mannheim from 1931- 1945. Not surprisingly, the paper was known as the “Hakenkreuzbanner”, and not any word related even remotely to “Swastika 2409:40C4:28:4FD4:D82C:465A:8DC2:EB9B (talk) 03:53, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I sympathize. I honestly do.  It is terrible that we have ended up in this place where the Swastika is associated with evil.  Were Swatika and hakenkreuz different and distinguishable at some point in time?  Quite possibly.  But the sad fact is that the term Swastika is the one used in the vast majority of English sources to date.  Wikipedia is a trailing indicator, not leading.  I am all for the various efforts to educate people and distinguish the symbols.  But until such efforts take hold, Wikipedia should remain the way it is.  Change the world, and Wikipedia will surely follow.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It is amazing that English speaking Christians in western world could not find a Kosher English word for the German word Hakenkreuz used by Hitler and his Nazis.
 * For any educated and sensible person it would be simple "Crooked Cross", but as Hitler and Nazis were all true Christians and followed the same sacred cross as their enemies, it would be unthinkable to tarnish our Christian Cross.
 * So the most convenient thing was to associate our enemy's Christian Crooked Cross with an ancient alien culture and pick their Sanskrit language word "Sawastika"(Holy and auspicious) which was used in most of the temples and scriptures of Buddist, Hindu and Jain religion.
 * Most English speaking population would have never heard of it.
 * Therefore it was not Hitler but the English speaking Christians who translated "Hakenkreuz" to Sanskrit word Sawastika rather than two simple english words "Crooked CROSS"
 * Let's please be honest and acknowledge the real meaning of Hakenkreuz and give back Sawastika to the real peaceful ancient religions worldwide. Koshswstka (talk) 14:22, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What are your sources for English speaking Christians being responsible?  Adolf Hitler pretended to be a Christian but actually despised Christianity. I don't know how many senior Nazis were Christian. This is a waste of time without reliable sources.  Doug Weller  talk 14:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ... and if you actually read the article, you would know that the British Empire adopted the Sanskrit word (and it association with good fortune) at least one hundred years before the German Volksich group adopted it independently from ancient Nordic culture. No translation involved. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:52, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * And that's the nub of the issue. The swastika and the hakenkreuz are visually indistinguishable even if they represent very different things. The swastika (symbol and term) was well known in the western world well before the Nazis. What else were they going to call it, especially the British elite with their background in the Raj? Certainly not some German word favoured by the Nazis. Can you imagine Churchill et al. saying to themselves "we must respect Nazi sensitivities and use the word they have allocated to this symbol and forget what we learnt for our Cambridge tripos". DeCausa (talk) 18:46, 31 March 2024 (UTC) DeCausa (talk) 18:46, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Direction of movement, Vinča & modern use
"The investigators put forth the hypothesis that the swastika moved westward from the Indian subcontinent to Finland, Scandinavia, the Scottish Highlands and other parts of Europe."

This is backwards to the apparent dates of the inscriptions found e.g. it appears in Ukraine ~10,000bce, then Hungary/Romania/Bulgaria/Serbia ~3,000 to 6,000bce, then Iran ~5,000bce, then the Indian subcontinent ~3,000bce, indicating it was moving Eastward. The introduction of the article also suggests appropriation of the symbol from the East, despite the archaeological evidence suggesting the opposite.

The article should probably discuss the Vinča archeological finds more in the prehistory section. It's worth noting that archaeological surveys unearthed Vinča symbols around the end of the 1800s and start of the last century. It was in use as a flag emblem by the National Christian Union party, led by Alexandru Cuza, in Romania, in 1922. 14 years prior, Vinča archaeological finds had been made in Serbia. Evidence suggesting that it was selected as an emblem as a result of its presence in the archeological finds can be found in the article pertaining to Cuza himself; e.g. Cuza mentions the Swastika and "signs were found on our soil", an apparent reference to the Vinča archaeological finds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.56.5016:40, 1 May 2024 (talk)

Appropriation
" Nazi Party who appropriated it from Asian cultures". Considering that there are Germanic examples dating back to the 3rd century, I would say that this statement is incorrect. Neither group appropriated the symbol from the other. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:19, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

 * The counterargument here would be that Hitler--and, I think it fair to say, Nazis more broadly--associated the symbol with their concept of an "Aryan" background of the Germanic race. Though you are of course quite correct that the Swastika is found the world over, I would argue that the Nazis' particular usage is an appropriation from the Sanskrit tradition.  Reasonable minds may differ, however.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:28, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Equally, they appropriated it from the European tradition by repurposing it as a militaristic symbol.
 * No single word can really capture such a complicated question: right now, appropriation is the closest we can get. It is certainly better than to say nothing at all and so pretend that there is no issue. But fell free to propose an alternative. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:52, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think "saying nothing" is the better choice. "The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly found in various Eurasian cultures, as well as some African and American ones. In the western world it is more widely recognized as a symbol of the German Nazi Party. The swastika never stopped being used as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It generally takes the form of a cross, the arms of which are of equal length and perpendicular to the adjacent arms, each bent midway at a right angle." I don't see what "issue" you are referring to. This symbol means one thing in one context and something else in another. That is a simple fact, not an "issue". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:43, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Your approach would make sense to me if the Nazis had picked the symbol at random, or if they liked the way it looked, or some such. But there was more to it than that.  Hitler himself couched the choice in the context of nonsense 'Aryan' history.  To say it is just another use of a widespread symbol strikes me as a less desirable choice.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * And that Aryan history linkage was based on the fact that it was in both regions. He didn't bring a solely Indic symbol into use in Germany, he linked German and Indic symbols. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Lots of good sources use the term "appropriation", for instance Steven Heller in The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? (2010) and Malcolm Quinn in The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol (2005). Appropriation is the right stance here, despite the existence of the relatively less known Germanic symbol. Binksternet (talk) 19:57, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. "He didn't bring a solely Indic symbol into use in Germany, he linked German and Indic symbols." DeCausa (talk) 22:30, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Remove Nazi Hookedcross picture from this article
Swastika symbol is prehistoric and has much more importance than the discredit brought to it by Nazi party. Nazi's stole the symbol and it should not be treated on par with Swastika, instead it should be called HookedCross and dealt separately. A passing reference to its similarity to Swastika is enough. No need for bold picture. 198.208.47.91 (talk) 18:26, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

 * ❌ See The common English language name for the symbol used by the Nazis is "swastika" message above. See the common name policy. Please also see the WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS essay. Peaceray (talk) 19:36, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Swastika


text:
George Michael

George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer-songwriter, record producer and philanthropist. Regarded as a pop culture icon, he is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, with his sales estimated at between 100 million to 125 million records worldwide. Michael was known as a creative force in songwriting, vocal performance, and visual presentation. He achieved 10 number-one songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 and 13 number-one songs on the UK Singles Chart. Michael won numerous music awards, including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. He was listed among Billboards the "Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time" and Rolling Stones the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time". The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. Michael was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.

Born in East Finchley, Middlesex, Michael rose to fame after forming the pop duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. Their first two albums, Fantastic (1983) and Make It Big (1984), reached number one on the US Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart. They had commercial success with singles "Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)", "Young Guns (Go for It)", "Bad Boys", "Club Tropicana", "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", "Last Christmas", "Everything She Wants", "Freedom", and "I'm Your Man". Their 1985 tour in China was the first by a Western popular music act, and generated worldwide media coverage. Michael took part in Band Aid's UK number-one single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in 1984 and performed at the following year's Live Aid concert.

Michael's first solo single, "Careless Whisper" (1984), reached number one in over 20 countries, including the UK and US. The second solo single, "A Different Corner", also reached number one in 1986. After Wham! disbanded that year, Michael released the number-one duet with Aretha Franklin, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)". His debut solo album, Faith (1987), stayed at number one on the Billboard 200 for 12 weeks and topped the UK Albums Chart. It is one of the best-selling albums of all time, having sold over 25 million copies worldwide. The singles "Faith", "Father Figure", "One More Try", and "Monkey" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Michael became the best-selling music artist of 1988, and Faith was awarded Album of the Year at the 1989 Grammy Awards. Michael's second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990), was also a number one in the UK and yielded the Billboard Hot 100 number one "Praying for Time" and the worldwide hit "Freedom! '90". Michael went on to release a series of multimillion-selling albums, including Older (1996), Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael (1998), Songs from the Last Century (1999), Patience (2004), and Twenty Five (2006). The albums earned him multiple hits such as "Jesus to a Child", "Fastlove", "Outside", "Amazing", and "An Easier Affair".

Michael came out as gay in 1998, and was an active LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser. His personal life, drug use, and legal troubles made headlines following an arrest for public lewdness in 1998 and multiple drug-related offences. The 2005 documentary A Different Story covered his career and personal life. Michael's 25 Live tour spanned three tours from 2006 to 2008. Michael fell into a coma in 2011 during a bout with pneumonia, but later recovered. He performed his final concert at London's Earls Court in 2012. Michael died of heart disease on Christmas Day in 2016, at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

Early life
George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου) on 25 June 1963, in East Finchley. His father, Kyriacos "Jack" Panayiotou, was a Greek Cypriot restaurateur who emigrated from Patriki, Cyprus, to England in the 1950s. His mother, Lesley Angold (born Harrison, died 1997), was an English dancer. In June 2008, Michael told the Los Angeles Times that his maternal grandmother was Jewish, but she married a non-Jewish man and raised her children with no knowledge of their Jewish background due to her fear during World War II. Michael spent most of his childhood in Kingsbury, London, in the home his parents bought soon after his birth; he attended Roe Green Junior School and Kingsbury High School. Michael had two sisters: Yioda (born 1958) and Melanie (1960–2019). On the BBC's Desert Island Discs, he disclosed that his interest in music followed an injury to his head around the age of eight.

Early music
While Michael was in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett. There, Michael began attending Bushey Meads School in Bushey, where he, as "Yog", met, sat down next to, and befriended, his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley. The two had the same career ambition of being musicians. Michael busked on the London Underground, performing songs such as "'39" by Queen. His involvement in the music business began with his working as a DJ, playing at the Bel Air Restaurant in Northwood, London,   clubs, and local schools around Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford. This was followed by the formation of a short-lived ska band called the Executive, with Ridgeley, Ridgeley's brother Paul, Andrew Leaver, Jamie Gould, and David Mortimer (later known as David Austin).

Wham!
Michael formed the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. On the cusp of fame, he decided to legally change his name to the more accessible George Michael. The band's first album Fantastic reached No. 1 in the UK in 1983 and produced a series of top 10 singles including "Young Guns", "Wham Rap!", and "Club Tropicana". Their second album, Make It Big, reached No. 1 on the charts in the US. Singles from that album included "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (No. 1 in the UK and US), "Freedom", "Everything She Wants", and "Careless Whisper" which reached No. 1 in nearly 25 countries, including the UK and US, and was Michael's first solo effort as a single. In December 1984, the single "Last Christmas" was released. In 1985 Michael received the first of his three Ivor Novello Awards for Songwriter of the Year from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

Michael performed on the original 1984 Band Aid recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?"—he appears third on the song after Paul Young and Boy George sing their lines. The song became the UK Christmas number one and Michael also donated the profits from "Last Christmas" and "Everything She Wants" to charity. Michael sang "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" with Elton John at Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in London on 13 July 1985. He also contributed background vocals to David Cassidy's 1985 hit "The Last Kiss", as well as Elton John's 1985 successes "Nikita" and "Wrap Her Up". Michael cited Cassidy as a major career influence and interviewed Cassidy for David Litchfield's Ritz Newspaper.

Wham!'s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western popular music act, generated worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael. The headline in the Chicago Tribune read: "East meets Wham!, and another great wall comes down". Before Wham!'s appearance in China, many kinds of music in the country were forbidden. The band's manager, Simon Napier-Bell, had spent 18 months trying to convince Chinese officials to let the duo play. The audience included members of the Chinese government. Chinese television presenter Kan Lijun, who was the on-stage host, spoke of Wham!'s historic performance: "'No-one had ever seen anything like that before. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course the police weren't happy and they were scared there would be riots.'" Wham! performed their hits with scantily clad dancers and strobing disco lights. According to Napier-Bell, Michael tried to get the crowd to clap along to "Club Tropicana", but "they hadn't a clue – they thought he wanted applause and politely gave it", before adding that some Chinese did eventually "get the hang of clapping on the beat." A UK embassy official in China stated "there was some lively dancing but this was almost entirely confined to younger western members of the audience." The tour was documented by film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Wham! in China: Foreign Skies.

With the success of Michael's solo singles, "Careless Whisper" (1984) and "A Different Corner" (1986), rumours of an impending break up of Wham! intensified. The duo officially separated in 1986, after releasing a farewell single, "The Edge of Heaven" and a farewell compilation, The Final (their third album Music from the Edge of Heaven was released in North America and Japan), plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film. The Wham! partnership ended officially with the commercially successful single "The Edge of Heaven", which reached No. 1 on the UK chart in June 1986.

1987–1989
During early 1987, at the beginning of his solo career, Michael released "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)", a duet with Aretha Franklin. "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" was a one-off project that helped Michael achieve an ambition by singing with one of his favourite artists. It scored number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 upon its release. For Michael, it became his third consecutive solo number one in the UK from three releases, after 1984's "Careless Whisper" (though the single was actually from the Wham! album Make It Big) and 1986's "A Different Corner". The single was also the first Michael had recorded as a solo artist which he had not written himself. The co-writer, Simon Climie, was unknown at the time; he later had success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in 1988. Michael and Franklin won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best R&B Performance – Duo or Group with Vocal for the song.

In late 1987, Michael released his debut solo album, Faith. The first single released from the album was "I Want Your Sex", in mid-1987. The song was banned by many radio stations in the UK and US, due to its sexually suggestive lyrics. MTV broadcast the video, featuring celebrity make-up artist Kathy Jeung in a basque and suspenders, only during the late night hours. Michael argued that the act was beautiful if the sex was monogamous, and he recorded a brief prologue for the video in which he said: "This song is not about casual sex." One of the racier scenes involved Michael writing the words "explore monogamy" on his partner's back in lipstick. Some radio stations played a toned-down version of the song, "I Want Your Love", with the word "love" replacing "sex".

When "I Want Your Sex" reached the US charts, American Top 40 host Casey Kasem refused to say the song's title, referring to it only as "the new single by George Michael." In the US, the song was also sometimes listed as "I Want Your Sex (from Beverly Hills Cop II)", since the song was featured on the soundtrack of the movie. Despite censorship and radio play problems, "I Want Your Sex" reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 in the UK. The second single, "Faith", was released in October 1987, a few weeks before the album. "Faith" became one of his most popular songs. The song was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for four consecutive weeks, becoming the best-selling single of 1988 in the US. It also reached No. 1 in Australia, and No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. The video provided some definitive images of the 1980s music industry in the process—Michael in shades, leather jacket, cowboy boots, and Levi's jeans, playing a guitar near a classic-design jukebox.

On 30 October, Faith was released in the UK and in several markets worldwide. Faith topped the UK Albums Chart, and in the US, the album had 51 non-consecutive weeks in the top 10 of Billboard 200, including 12 weeks at No. 1. Faith had many successes, with four singles ("Faith", "Father Figure", "One More Try", and "Monkey") reaching No. 1 in the US. Faith was certified Diamond by the RIAA for sales of 10 million copies in the US. To date, global sales of Faith are more than 25 million units. The album was highly acclaimed by music critics, with AllMusic journalist Steve Huey describing it as a "superbly crafted mainstream pop/rock masterpiece" and "one of the finest pop albums of the '80s". In a review by Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Mark Coleman commended most of the songs on the album, which he said "displays Michael's intuitive understanding of pop music and his increasingly intelligent use of his power to communicate to an ever-growing audience."

In 1988, Michael embarked on a world tour. In Los Angeles, Michael was joined on stage by Aretha Franklin for "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)". It was the second highest grossing event of 1988, earning $17.7 million. At the 1988 Brit Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall on 8 February, Michael received the first of his two awards for Best British Male Solo Artist. Later that month, Faith won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 31st Grammy Awards. At the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards on 6 September in Los Angeles, Michael received the Video Vanguard Award. According to Michael in his film, A Different Story, success did not make him happy and he started to think there was something wrong in being an idol for millions of teenage girls. The whole Faith process (promotion, videos, tour, awards) left him exhausted, lonely and frustrated, and far from his friends and family. In 1990, he told his record company Sony that, for his second album, he did not want to do promotions like the one for Faith.

1990s
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 was released in September 1990. The title is an indication of his desire to be taken more seriously as a songwriter. The album was released in Europe on 3 September 1990, and one week later in the US. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart and peaked at No. 2 on the US Billboard 200. It spent a total of 88 weeks on the UK Albums Chart and was certified four-times Platinum by the BPI. The album produced five UK singles, all of which were released within an eight-month period: "Praying for Time", "Waiting for That Day", "Freedom! '90", "Heal the Pain", and "Cowboys and Angels" (the latter being his only single not to chart in the UK top 40). Michael refused to do any promotion for the album. At the 1991 Brit Awards, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 won the award for Best British Album.

The album's first single, "Praying for Time", with lyrics concerning social ills and injustice, was released in August 1990. James Hunter of Rolling Stone magazine described the song as "a distraught look at the world's astounding woundedness. Michael offers the healing passage of time as the only balm for physical and emotional hunger, poverty, hypocrisy, and hatred." The song was an instant success, reaching No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 6 in the UK. A video was released shortly thereafter, consisting of the lyrics on a dark background. Michael did not appear in this video or any subsequent videos for the album. The second single from Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, "Waiting for That Day", was an acoustic-heavy single, released as an immediate follow-up to "Praying for Time".

"Freedom! '90" was the second of only two singles from Listen Without Prejudice to be supported by a music video (the other being the Michael-less "Praying for Time"). The song alludes to his struggles with his artistic identity, and prophesied his efforts shortly thereafter to end his recording contract with Sony Music. As if to prove the song's sentiment, Michael refused to appear in the video (directed by David Fincher), and instead recruited supermodels Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, and Cindy Crawford to appear in and lip sync in his stead. It also featured lyrics critical of his sex symbol status. It reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, and No. 28 on the UK Singles Chart. "Mother's Pride" gained significant radio play in the US during the first Persian Gulf War during 1991, often with radio stations mixing in callers' tributes to soldiers with the music.

Later in 1991, Michael embarked on the Cover to Cover tour in Japan, England, the US, and Brazil, where he performed at Rock in Rio. The tour was not a proper promotion for Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. Rather, it featured Michael singing his favourite cover songs. Among his favourites was "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", a 1974 song by Elton John; Michael and John had performed the song together at the Live Aid concert in 1985, and again for Michael's concert at London's Wembley Arena on 25 March 1991, where the duet was recorded. "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" was released as a single at the end of 1991 and reached No. 1 in both the UK and US. In 1991, Michael released an autobiography through Penguin Books titled Bare, co-written with Tony Parsons.

An expected follow-up album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 2, was scrapped due to Michael's lawsuit with Sony. Instead, Michael donated three songs to the charity project Red Hot + Dance, for the Red Hot Organization which raised money for AIDS awareness; a fourth track, "Crazyman Dance", was the B-side of 1992's "Too Funky". Michael donated the royalties from "Too Funky" to the same cause. "Too Funky" reached No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Michael performed with Queen at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert on 20 April 1992 at Wembley Stadium. The concert was a tribute to the life of the late Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury, with the proceeds going to AIDS research. Michael performed "'39", "These Are the Days of Our Lives" with Lisa Stansfield and "Somebody to Love". Michael's performance of "Somebody to Love" was hailed as "one of the best performances of the tribute concert". Michael later reflected, "It was probably the proudest moment for me of my career, because it was me living out a childhood fantasy, I suppose, to sing one of Freddie's songs in front of 80,000 people."

The Five Live EP featured five live recordings (six in several countries) performed by Michael, Queen, and Lisa Stansfield. "Somebody to Love" and "These Are the Days of Our Lives" were recorded at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. "Killer", "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", and "Calling You" were recorded during his Cover to Cover tour in 1991. All proceeds from the sale of the EP benefited the Mercury Phoenix Trust. Sales of the EP were strong through Europe, where it debuted at No. 1 in the UK and several European countries. Chart success in the US was less spectacular, where it reached No. 40 on the Billboard 200 ("Somebody to Love" reached No. 30 on the US Billboard Hot 100). The performance would later feature on Queen's compilation album Greatest Hits III.

During November 1994, after a long period of seclusion, Michael appeared at the first MTV Europe Music Awards show, where he gave a performance of a new song, "Jesus to a Child". The song was a melancholy tribute to his lover, Anselmo Feleppa, who had died in March 1993. The song entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 1 and No. 7 on Billboard upon release in 1996. It was Michael's longest UK Top 40 single, at almost seven minutes long. The exact identity of the song's subject—and the nature of Michael's relationship with Feleppa—was shrouded in innuendo and speculation, as Michael had not confirmed he was homosexual and did not do so until 1998. The video for "Jesus to a Child" was a picture of images recalling loss, pain and suffering. Michael consistently dedicated the song to Feleppa before performing it live.

Michael released "Fastlove", an energetic tune about wanting gratification and fulfilment without commitment, in 1996. The single version was nearly five minutes long. "Fastlove" was supported by a futuristic virtual reality-related video. The single reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, spending three weeks at the top spot. In the US, "Fastlove" peaked at No. 8. Following "Fastlove", Michael released Older, his third studio album. In the UK, the album was particularly notable for producing a record six top three hit singles in a two-year span.

In 1996, Michael was voted Best British Male at the MTV Europe Music Awards and the Brit Awards; and at the British Academy's Ivor Novello Awards, he was awarded the title of Songwriter of the Year for the third time. Michael performed a concert at Three Mills Studios, London, for MTV Unplugged. It was his first long performance in years, and in the audience was Michael's mother, who died of cancer the following year.

Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael (1998) was Michael's first solo greatest hits collection. The collection of 28 songs (29 songs are included on the European and Australian release) are separated into two-halves, with each containing a particular theme and mood. The first CD, titled "For the Heart", predominantly contains ballads; the second CD, "For the Feet", consists mainly of dance tunes. It was released through Sony Music Entertainment as a condition of severing contractual ties with the label. Ladies & Gentlemen was a success, peaking at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart for eight weeks. It spent over 200 weeks in the UK chart, and is the 45th best-selling album ever in the UK. It is certified seven-times platinum in the UK and multi-platinum in the US, and is Michael's most commercially successful album in his homeland, having sold more than 2.8 million copies. As of 2013, the album had reached worldwide sales of approximately 15 million copies. The first single of the album, "Outside", was a humorous song making a reference to his arrest for soliciting a policeman in a public toilet. "As", his duet with Mary J. Blige, was released as the second single in many territories around the world. Both singles reached the top 5 in the UK Singles Chart.

Released in 1999, Songs from the Last Century is a studio album of cover tracks. The album achieved the lowest peak of his solo efforts, peaking at No. 157 on the American Billboard 200 albums chart and at No. 2 in the UK Albums Chart.

2000s
In 2000, Michael worked on the hit single "If I Told You That" with Whitney Houston. Michael co-produced on the single along with Rodney Jerkins. Michael's first single from his fifth studio album, "Freeek!", reached the Top 10 in the UK. His next single was "Shoot the Dog" which was released in July 2002 during the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The video for the song showed Tony Blair as George Bush's poodle. The single's cover featured the Daily Mirror's "Howdy Poodle" front page from earlier in the year. Responding to criticism, Michael said, "I am British, I live here, I pay my taxes, and I'm very, very worried that we are now the second most dangerous country in the world thanks to our special relationship with America." It reached No. 1 in Denmark and made the top 5 in most European charts. It peaked at No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart.

In February 2003, Michael recorded another song in protest against the looming Iraq war, Don McLean's "The Grave". The original was written by McLean in 1971 and was a protest against the Vietnam War. Michael performed the song on numerous TV shows including Top of the Pops and So Graham Norton. His performance of the song on Top of the Pops on 7 March 2003 was his first studio appearance on the programme since 1986. He ran into conflict with the show's producers for an anti-war, anti-Blair T-shirt worn by some members of his band. McLean stated that he was "proud of George Michael for standing up for life and sanity".

When Michael's fifth studio album, Patience, was released in 2004, it was critically acclaimed and went to No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart. The album became one of the fastest-selling albums in the UK, selling over 200,000 copies in the first week alone. It reached the Top 5 on most European charts and peaked at No. 12 in the US, selling over 500,000 copies to earn a Gold certification from the RIAA. "Amazing", the third single from the album, became a No. 1 hit in Europe. When Michael appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on 26 May 2004, to promote the album, he performed "Amazing", along with his classic songs "Father Figure" and "Faith". On the show, Michael spoke of his arrest, the public revelation of his homosexuality, and his resumption of public performances. He allowed Oprah's crew inside his home outside London. The fourth single taken off the album was "Flawless". It was a dance hit in Europe as well as North America, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play and becoming Michael's last No. 1 single on the US Dance chart. Twenty Five is Michael's second greatest hits album, celebrating the 25th anniversary of his music career. Released in November 2006 by Sony BMG, it debuted at no. 1 in the UK.

During the 2005 Live 8 concert at Hyde Park, London, Michael joined Paul McCartney on stage, harmonising on The Beatles classic "Drive My Car". In 2006, Michael embarked on his first tour in 15 years, 25 Live. The tour began in Barcelona, Spain, on 23 September and finished in December at Wembley Arena in England. On 9 June 2007, Michael became the first artist to perform live at the newly renovated Wembley Stadium in London. On 25 March 2008, a third part of the 25 Live Tour was announced for North America, with 21 dates in the US and Canada.

Michael made his American acting debut by playing a guardian angel to Jonny Lee Miller's character on Eli Stone, a US TV series. Each episode of the show's first season was named after a song of his. Michael also appeared on the 2008 finale show of American Idol on 21 May, singing "Praying for Time". When asked what he thought Simon Cowell would say of his performance, he replied "I think he'll probably tell me I shouldn't have done a George Michael song. He's told plenty of people that in the past, so I think that'd be quite funny." On 25 December 2008, Michael released a new Christmas-themed track, "December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas)", on his website for free.

2010s
In early 2010, Michael performed his first concerts in Australia since 1988. On 20 February 2010, Michael performed his first show in Perth at the Burswood Dome to an audience of 15,000. On 2 March 2011, Michael announced the release of his cover version of New Order's 1987 hit "True Faith" in aid of the UK charity telethon Comic Relief. Michael appeared on Comic Relief itself, featuring in the first Carpool Karaoke sketch of James Corden, with the pair singing songs while Corden drove around London. On 15 April 2011, Michael released a cover of Stevie Wonder's 1972 song, "You and I", as an MP3 gift to Prince William and Catherine Middleton on the occasion of their wedding on 29 April 2011. Although the MP3 was released for free download, Michael appealed to those who downloaded the track to make a contribution to "The Prince William & Miss Catherine Middleton Charitable Gift Fund".

The Symphonica Tour began at the Prague State Opera House on 22 August 2011. In October 2011, Michael was announced as one of the final nominees for the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. In November, he had to cancel the remainder of the tour as he became ill with pneumonia in Vienna, Austria, ultimately slipping into a coma.

In February 2012, two months after leaving hospital, Michael made a surprise appearance at the 2012 Brit Awards at the O2 Arena in London, where he received a standing ovation, and presented Adele the award for Best British Album. In March, Michael announced that he was healthy and that the Symphonica Tour would resume in autumn. The final concert of the tour—which was also the final concert of Michael's life–was performed at London's Earls Court on 17 October 2012.

Symphonica was released on 17 March 2014, and became Michael's seventh solo No. 1 album in the UK, and ninth overall including his Wham! chart-toppers. The album was produced by Phil Ramone and Michael; the album was Ramone's last production credit. On 2 November 2016, Michael's management team announced that a second documentary on his life, entitled Freedom, was set to be released in March 2017. A month after, English songwriter Naughty Boy confirmed plans to collaborate with Michael, for a new song and album. Naughty Boy claimed that the song is "amazing but [...] bittersweet". On 7 September 2017 (months after Michael's death), the single "Fantasy", featuring Nile Rodgers, was released.

Having charted at number two upon its release in 1984 (behind Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which Michael also performed in), "Last Christmas" finally reached number-one in the UK Singles Chart on New Year's Day 2021 (chart week ending date 7 January 2021), more than 36 years after its initial release. Andrew Ridgeley said the chart placing was "a testament to its timeless appeal and charm", adding: "It is a fitting tribute to George's song-writing genius... he would have been immensely proud and utterly thrilled." The period of 36 years taken to reach number one was a UK chart record, which would be surpassed by Kate Bush with "Running Up That Hill" in June 2022 which took 37 years.

Posthumous releases
On 7 September 2017, Michael's estate released the single "Fantasy". Written and produced by Michael, was recorded while he was working on Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. However, the track was not included on the album. Instead in October 1990, it was featured on the "Waiting for That Day" single in the United Kingdom and on the "Freedom! '90" single in the rest of the world. On 7 September 2017, a new version reworked by Nile Rodgers was released as a single from Listen Without Prejudice / MTV Unplugged (2017). The album includes the original version of "Fantasy" and the 1998 version; the Nile Rodgers remix was not included on the disc but was made available to purchasers as a digital download. On 18 October 2017, a music video was released on Vevo.

In 2019, the Emma Thompson-written film Last Christmas was released. The title of the film is taken from the Wham! classic. An official soundtrack album was released by Legacy Recordings on CD, two-disc vinyl, and digital formats on 8 November 2019. The album contains 14 Wham! and solo George Michael songs, as well as a previously unreleased song originally completed in 2015 titled "This Is How (We Want You to Get High)". The soundtrack album debuted at number one on the UK Official Soundtrack Albums Chart and at number 11 on the UK Albums Chart on 15 November 2019. It also entered the Australian Albums Chart at number seven, the Irish Albums Chart, where it debuted at number 32, climbing to number 26 the following week, and at number 55 on the US Billboard 200.

On 22 June 2022, the documentary film Freedom Uncut was released. Michael had been working on the film shortly before his death, alongside David Austin, and provides the narration throughout. NME, The Guardian and Empire all praised the film and rated it 4/5 stars. On 30 September 2022, a remastered and expanded version of Older was released comprising the original Older album, the Upper disc and three bonus CDs, containing remixes and live recordings of Older-era tracks. The album charted at number 2 on the UK Official Albums Chart Top 100 on 7 October 2022.

Sexuality and relationships
Michael stated that his early fantasies were about women, which "led me to believe I was on the path to heterosexuality", but at puberty he started to fantasise about men, which he later said "had something to do with my environment". At the age of 19, Michael told Andrew Ridgeley that he was bisexual. Michael also told one of his two sisters, but he was advised not to tell his parents about his sexuality. In 1998, not long after he was outed for his sexuality, Michael said on Parkinson that he became confident he was gay when he fell in love with a man. This stance was reiterated in a 1999 interview with The Advocate, where Michael told the editor-in-chief, Judy Wieder, that it was "falling in love with a man that ended his conflict over bisexuality". "I never had a moral problem with being gay", Michael told her. "I thought I had fallen in love with a woman a couple of times. Then I fell in love with a man, and realised that none of those things had been love."

In 2004, Michael said, "I used to sleep with women quite a lot in the Wham! days but never felt it could develop into a relationship because I knew that, emotionally, I was a gay man. I didn't want to commit to them, but I was attracted to them. Then I became ashamed that I might be using them. I decided I had to stop, which I did when I began to worry about AIDS, which was becoming prevalent in Britain. Although I had always had safe sex, I didn't want to sleep with a woman without telling her I was bisexual. I felt that would be irresponsible. Basically, I didn't want to have that uncomfortable conversation that might ruin the moment, so I stopped sleeping with them." In the same interview, he added: "If I wasn't with Kenny [his boyfriend at the time], I would have sex with women, no question". He said he believed that the formation of his sexuality was "a nurture thing, via the absence of my father who was always busy working. It meant I was exceptionally close to my mother", though he stated that "there are definitely those who have a predisposition to being gay in which the environment is irrelevant." In 2007, Michael said he had hidden his sexuality because of worries over what effect it might have on his mother. Two years later, he added: "My depression at the end of Wham! was because I was beginning to realise I was gay, not bisexual."

During the late 1980s, Michael had a relationship with make-up artist Kathy Jeung, who was regarded for a time as his artistic "muse" and who appeared in the "I Want Your Sex" video. Michael later said that she had been his "only bona fide" girlfriend, and that she knew of his bisexuality. In 2016, Jeung reacted to Michael's death by calling him a "true friend" with whom she had spent "some of the best time of [her] life".

In 1992, Michael established a relationship with Anselmo Feleppa, a Brazilian dress designer whom he had met at the Rock in Rio concert in 1991. Six months into their relationship, Feleppa discovered that he was HIV-positive. Michael later said: "It was terrifying news. I thought I could have the disease too. I couldn't go through it with my family because I didn't know how to share it with them – they didn't even know I was gay." In 1993, Feleppa died of an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage. Michael's single, "Jesus to a Child", is a tribute to Feleppa (Michael consistently dedicated it to him before performing it live), as is his album Older (1996). In 2008, speaking about the loss of Feleppa, Michael said: "It was a terribly depressing time. It took about three years to grieve, then after that I lost my mother. I felt almost like I was cursed."

In 1996, Michael entered into a long-term relationship with Kenny Goss, a former flight attendant, cheerleading coach, and sportswear executive from Dallas, Texas. They had a home in Dallas, a 16th-century house in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and an £8 million mansion in Highgate, North London. In late November 2005, it was reported that Michael and Goss planned to register their relationship as a civil partnership in the UK, but because of negative publicity and his upcoming tour, they postponed their plans. On 22 August 2011, the opening night of his Symphonica Tour, Michael announced that he and Goss had split two years earlier.

Michael's homosexuality became publicly known following his April 1998 arrest for public lewdness. In 2007, Michael said "that hiding his sexuality made him feel 'fraudulent', and his eventual outing, when he was arrested [...] in 1998, was a subconsciously deliberate act." In 2012, Michael entered a relationship with Fadi Fawaz, a Lebanese-Australian celebrity hairstylist and freelance photographer based in London. It was Fawaz who found Michael's body on Christmas morning 2016.

Legal troubles
On 7 April 1998, Michael was arrested for "engaging in a lewd act" in a public restroom of the Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills, California. Michael was arrested by undercover policeman Marcelo Rodríguez in a sting operation. In an MTV interview, Michael stated: "I got followed into the restroom and then this cop—I didn't know it was a cop, obviously—he started playing this game, which I think is called, 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I'm going to nick you!'"

After pleading "no contest" to the charge, Michael was fined US$810 and sentenced to 80 hours of community service. Soon afterwards, Michael made a video for his single "Outside", which satirised the public toilet incident and featured men dressed as policemen kissing. Rodríguez claimed that this video "mocked" him, and that Michael had slandered him in interviews. In 1999, he brought a US$10 million court case in California against the singer. The court dismissed the case, but an appellate court reinstated it on 3 December 2002. The court then ruled that Rodríguez, as a public official, could not legally recover damages for emotional distress.

On 23 July 2006, Michael was again accused of engaging in anonymous public sex, this time at London's Hampstead Heath. Michael stated that his cruising for anonymous sex was not an issue in his relationship with partner Kenny Goss.

In February 2006, Michael was arrested for possession of Class C drugs, an incident that he described as "my own stupid fault, as usual". He was cautioned by the police and released. In 2007, he pleaded guilty to drug-impaired driving after obstructing the road at traffic lights in Cricklewood in northwest London, and was subsequently banned from driving for two years and sentenced to community service. On 19 September 2008, Michael was arrested in a public convenience in the Hampstead Heath area for possession of Class A and C drugs. He was taken to the police station and cautioned for controlled substance possession.

In the early hours of 4 July 2010, Michael was returning from the Gay Pride parade, when he was spotted on CCTV crashing his car into the front of a Snappy Snaps store in Hampstead, north London, and was arrested on suspicion of being unfit to drive. On 12 August, London's Metropolitan Police said he was "charged with possession of cannabis and with driving while unfit through drink or drugs". It was reported that Michael had also been taking the prescription tricyclic antidepressant medication amitriptyline. On 24 August 2010, the singer pleaded guilty at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court in London after admitting driving under the influence of drugs. On 14 September 2010, at the same court, Michael was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, a fine, and a five-year ban from driving. Michael was released from Highpoint Prison in Suffolk on 11 October 2010, after serving four weeks. In the dent in the shop wall Michael had crashed into, someone graffitied the word "Wham".

Health
Michael struggled with substance abuse for many years. He was arrested for drug-related offences in 2006, 2008 and 2010. In September 2007, on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, Michael said that his cannabis use was a problem; he wished he could smoke less of it and was constantly trying to do so. On 5 December 2009, in an interview with The Guardian, Michael explained he had cut back on cannabis and was smoking only "seven or eight" spliffs per day instead of the 25 per day he had formerly smoked. Michael also abused sleeping pills.

On 26 October 2011, Michael cancelled a performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London due to a viral infection. On 21 November, Vienna General Hospital admitted Michael after he complained of chest pains while at a hotel two hours before his performance at a venue there for his Symphonica Tour. Michael appeared to be "in good spirits" and responded well to treatment following his admission, but on 25 November hospital officials said that his condition had "worsened overnight". This development led to cancellations and postponements of Michael's remaining 2011 performances, which had been scheduled mainly for the United Kingdom. The singer was later confirmed to have suffered from pneumonia and, until 1 December, was in an intensive care unit; at one point, he was comatose. On 21 December, the hospital discharged him. Michael told the press that he had undergone a tracheotomy, that the staff at the hospital had saved his life, and that he would perform a free concert for them. After waking from the coma, Michael had a temporary West Country accent, and there was concern he had developed foreign accent syndrome.

On 16 May 2013, Michael sustained a head injury when he fell from his moving car on the M1 motorway, near St Albans in Hertfordshire, and was airlifted to hospital. On 29 May, Michael's publicist confirmed that he had left the hospital and that his injuries were superficial. In 2014, Michael stated that he had refrained from using cannabis for one-and-one-half years. In June 2015, he checked into a drug rehabilitation facility in Switzerland.

Politics
"'To call us Thatcherite was so simplistic, basically saying that if you've got a deep enough tan and made a bit of money then you've got to be a Thatcherite.'" Michael's father was a communist. At the age of fifteen, Michael joined the Young Communist League, under his Greek name. During the time of Margaret Thatcher as the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom throughout the 1980s, Michael voted Labour. In September 1984, Wham! performed at a benefit concert at London's Royal Festival Hall for the striking UK miners.

In 2000, Michael joined Melissa Etheridge, Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, the Pet Shop Boys, and k.d. lang, to perform in Washington, D.C. as part of Equality Rocks, a concert to benefit the Human Rights Campaign, an American LGBT rights group. His 2002 single "Shoot the Dog" was critical of the friendly relationship between the UK and US governments, in particular the relationship between Tony Blair and George W. Bush, with their involvement in the War on Terror. Michael voiced his concern about the lack of public consultation in the UK regarding the War on Terror: "On an issue as enormous as the possible bombing of Iraq, how can you represent us when you haven't asked us what we think?"

In 2006, Michael performed a free concert for NHS nurses in London to thank the nurses who had cared for his late mother. He told the audience: "Thank you for everything you do — some people appreciate it. Now if we can only get the government to do the same thing."

In 2007, Michael sent the £1,450,000 piano that John Lennon used to write "Imagine" around the United States on a "peace tour", displaying at places where notable acts of violence had taken place, such as Dallas' Dealey Plaza, where US President John F. Kennedy had been shot. He devoted his 2007 concert in Sofia, from his "Twenty Five Tour" to the Bulgarian nurses prosecuted in the HIV trial in Libya. On 17 June 2008, Michael said he was thrilled by California's legalisation of same-sex marriage, calling the move "way overdue".

Philanthropy
In November 1984, Michael joined other British and Irish pop stars of the era to form Band Aid, singing on the charity song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" for famine relief in Ethiopia. This single became the UK Christmas number one in December 1984, holding Michael's own song, "Last Christmas" by Wham!, at No. 2. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" sold 3.75 million copies in the UK and became the biggest-selling single in UK chart history, a title it held until 1997 when it was overtaken by Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997", released in tribute to Princess Diana following her death (Michael attended Diana's funeral with Elton John). Michael donated the royalties from "Last Christmas" to Band Aid and subsequently sang with Elton John at Live Aid (the Band Aid charity concert) in 1985.

In 1986, Michael took part in the Prince's Trust charity concert held at Wembley Arena, performing "Everytime You Go Away" alongside Paul Young. In 1988, Michael participated in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute at Wembley Stadium in London together with many other singers (such as Annie Lennox and Sting), performing "Sexual Healing".

An LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser,  the proceeds from the 1991 single "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" were divided among 10 different charities for children, AIDS and education. He was also a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Michael wore a red ribbon at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992. He was instrumental in bringing the compilation CD Red Hot + Dance to fruition, contributing three original songs, with the album featuring Seal and Madonna among others.

In 2003, he paired up with Ronan Keating on the UK edition of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and won £32,000, after having their original £64,000 winnings halved by answering the £125,000 question incorrectly. The same year, Michael joined other celebrities to support a campaign to help raise £20 million for terminally ill children run by the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity of which he was a patron. He said: "Loss is such an incredibly difficult thing. I bow down to people who actually have to deal with the loss of a child."

From 2005 until his death, Michael was a patron of the Swan Lifeline charity. At the time he had moved to his home in Highgate, he had swans in the river at the end of his garden. A neighbour, who was involved with the charity, asked him if he would be interested, and he immediately agreed.

Following Michael's death, various charities revealed that Michael had privately supported them for many years. Those charities included Childline (to whom he had donated "millions"), the Terrence Higgins Trust, and Macmillan Cancer Support. Michael also donated to individuals: he reportedly called the production team of the quiz show Deal or No Deal after a contestant had revealed that she needed £15,000 to fund IVF treatment and anonymously paid for the treatment. Michael once tipped a student nurse working as a barmaid £5,000 because she was in debt. On 3 January 2017, another woman came forward and (with the permission of Michael's family) revealed he had anonymously paid for her IVF treatment after seeing her talk about her problems conceiving on an episode of This Morning in 2010. The woman gave birth to a girl in 2012.

After his death, it was also revealed that Michael had been anonymously paying for an annual Christmas tree erected where he lived in Highgate, as well as funding the Christmas lights, for the previous decade. He was also the largest funder of Highgate's annual Fair in the Square for those ten years, donating anonymously as "a local resident".

Assets
Between 2006 and 2008, according to reports, Michael earned £48.5 million from the 25 Live tour alone. In July 2014, he was reported to have been a celebrity investor in a tax avoidance scheme called Liberty. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2015 of the wealthiest British musicians, Michael was worth £105 million.

Death
In the early hours of Christmas Day 2016, Michael died in bed at his home in Goring-on-Thames, at the age of 53. He was found by his partner, Fadi Fawaz. In March 2017, a senior coroner in Oxfordshire attributed Michael's death to natural causes due to dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and a fatty liver.

Owing to the delay in determining the cause of death, Michael's funeral was held on 29 March 2017. In a private ceremony, he was buried at Highgate Cemetery in north London, on one side of his mother's grave. His sister Melanie, who died after him three years to the day, is buried on the other side.

Aftermath
In the summer of 2017, a temporary informal memorial garden was created outside Michael's former home in The Grove, Highgate. The site, in a private square that Michael had owned, was tended by fans for approximately eighteen months until it was cleared.

In March 2019, Michael's art collection was auctioned in England for £11.3 million. The proceeds were donated to various philanthropic organisations Michael gave to while he was alive.

Michael's will left most of his £97 million estate to his sisters, his father and friends. It did not include bequests to either Fawaz or to his former partner, Kenny Goss. In 2021, following legal proceedings, the trustees of Michael's estate entered into a financial settlement with Goss.

Tributes
Elton John was among those who paid tribute to Michael, emotionally addressing the audience in Las Vegas on 28 December, "What a singer, what a songwriter. But more than anything as a human being he was one of the kindest, sweetest, most generous people I've ever met."

At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on 12 February 2017, Adele performed a slow version of "Fastlove" in tribute to Michael. On 22 February, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin performed "A Different Corner" at the 2017 Brit Awards. In June, Michael's close friend, former Spice Girls member Geri Halliwell, released a charity single, "Angels in Chains", a tribute to him, to raise money for Childline.

In 2020, Michael was commemorated with a mural in his native borough of Brent. The artwork, which formed part of the Brent Biennial, was commissioned to pay tribute to his contribution to the fields of music and entertainment. Artist Dawn Mellor said it celebrates the singer as a pioneering cultural and LGBTQ+ figure. In February 2024, the Royal Mint unveiled a collectable coin featuring Michael wearing his trademark sunglasses.

Awards and achievements
Michael won numerous music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male Artist twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, six Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards (including two in the traditionally-black Soul/R&B category ), and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations. In 2015, he was ranked 45th in Billboard's list of the "Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time". The Radio Academy stated that Michael was the most frequently played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. In 2019, Michael was named as the greatest artist of all time by Smooth Radio. In 2023, Michael was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On 3 May 2023, Michael was selected as an inductee to the 2023 class alongside Kate Bush, Willie Nelson, The Spinners, Missy Elliott and Rage Against the Machine. In November 2023, Michael was inducted into the Hall, with Andrew Ridgeley as his induction presenter.

Discography and record sales
At the time of his death, Michael was estimated to have sold between 100 million and 125 million records worldwide. As a solo artist, he is estimated to have sold over 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists. He is estimated to have sold up to 30 million records with Wham!. His debut solo album Faith sold more than 25 million copies.

Solo discography
 * Faith (1987)
 * Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990)
 * Older (1996)
 * Songs from the Last Century (1999)
 * Patience (2004)

'''Wham! discography'''
 * Fantastic (1983)
 * Make It Big (1984)
 * Music from the Edge of Heaven (1986)

Tours

 * The Faith Tour (1988–89)
 * Cover to Cover (1991)
 * 25 Live (2006–08)
 * George Michael Live in Australia (2010)
 * Symphonica Tour (2011–12)

title: George Michael


text:
User:AEngineer

James E. Mitchell Associate Professor Civil and Architectural Engineering Drexel University - Philadelphia, PA - USA (215) 895-1374 http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~mitcheje

title: User:AEngineer