Despite his incredible, decades-long music career, George Michael died alone on Christmas day in 2016. Though he was widely adored by Hollywood fans for his catchy tunes and Wham! music group, his final years were ruled by his dark inner demons, addictions and secluded life.
At the height of his drug addiction, a reclusive Michael began smoking 24 marijuana joints a day inside his home, hiding from the world and numbing his internal feuds.
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“George became a stoner. He said it, that’s his word not mine,” Music Historian Paul Gambaccini says in a teaser for REELZ’s new docuseries, George Michael’s Lonely Life.
“If you’re a superstar, you are grieving in public. You can’t just be yourself. The tendency then is to contain grief, and to swallow it, to hold it in and it will do damage. It will eat away at you and corrode you from the inside out,” adds former friend and Music Journalist Lesley-Ann Jones.
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“You’re looking for ways to alleviate the pain that that’s causing, and why wouldn’t you take the drugs?”
“George Michael’s Lonely Life” airs Saturday, June 2 at 9:00 ET/ 8:00 PT on REELZ.
