George Michael: Jail Time Was Karma and “Deserved”

Pop star speaks of shame of being jailed and support he has received over drug problems

George Michael has said he deserved to be jailed for crashing his Range Rover while high on cannabis, describing the punishment as karma.

The singer said he was ashamed to have broken the law repeatedly, adding that he was now in therapy for his drug abuse issues. He served a month of an eight-week prison sentence and was banned from driving for five years.

In a radio interview, he said: "By the time I went to court, I knew this wasn't going to happen again. I knew I was going to lose my licence.

"I was assured I wasn't going to prison but I thought I was and, like I said, it was much easier to take because I felt it was deserved.

"This was a hugely shameful thing to have done repeatedly so karmically I felt like I had a bill to pay. I went to prison, I paid my bill."

Asked for his reaction to being sentenced after admitting driving while unfit through drugs and possessing two cannabis cigarettes, he said: "Remarkably enough – I know people must think it was a really horrific experience – it's so much easier to take any form of punishment if you believe you actually deserve it, and I did."

He said he was sent to prison for two reasons – because it was his second conviction for the same offence, despite the fact no cannabis was involved on the first occasion, and also because: "I'm George Michael and the poster boy for cannabis."

The singer, whose real name is Georgios Panayioto, was initially taken to Pentonville prison in north London, where former inmates have included Oscar Wilde and Boy George, who wrote to him in prison, as did Sir Elton John and Paul McCartney.

Describing his first night in the prison, he said: "Well, it was Pentonville. It wasn't a weekend break, put it that way.

"What did I think? Well, I didn't feel sorry for myself. I thought, 'Oh my God, this place is absolutely filthy,' because it was Pentonville. I just thought, 'You get your head down'.

"Those stories of me crying are rubbish. They wish that was me, but that's not me."

Michael was later transferred to Highpoint open prison in Suffolk.

He said his last night in prison was great, with "every single staff member" and prisoner getting his autograph – some of them on headed prison paper.

He described signing a guitar for one man, saying: "This guy comes in with a guitar and he said he wanted me to write the date. So I asked the date, and he said it's the 10th of the 10th of the 10th. And I just thought 'That's so fitting.' It's kind of like the clock rolling round to the end of something, tomorrow I start again."

Michael has recorded a cover version of True Faith by New Order for this year's Comic Relief appeal, which will be released on 13 March, his first single since prison.

The interview will be broadcast on BBC Radio 2's Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Monday and Tuesday.

source: guardian.co.uk