Boy George has opened up about how his parents’ behaviour impacted him growing up, admitting that he feels he has become the “gay version” of his father.
The Culture Club star, 63, spoke to singer Lulu on the latest episode of her Turning Points podcast, explaining: “I did everything I could not to be like my day, but [it] turned out that I was the most like him of anyone – the gay version of my dad.”
Born George Alan O’Dowd, the singer was raised in a working-class Irish Catholic family in Eltham, the second of five children born to builder Jerry O’Dowd and Dinah O’Dowd.
He has spoken previously about his difficult childhood and the tensions within the household, as his father would be physically and mentally abusive to his mother.
In 2007, he wrote the foreword for his mother’s memoir, Cry Salty Tears, in which she documented the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her husband.
“I went out of my way not to be like my dad, but turned out that I was the most like him of anyone… the gay version,” he joked to Lulu. “But I guess I soaked it up because you can’t not… you get silenced a lot, which is I think is why we go out and seek so much attention.”
He said his dad could also be “very complimentary” but it was “always on his terms”, whereas his mum was “a bit more encouraging in terms of being who I wanted to be”.
“I think because my dad stopped her from being who she wanted to be,” he said. “If my mum put on a nice dress, she was having an affair…
“There was this funny moment I talk about in my book where my dad booked my mum driving lessons, but because she put her best coat on, he chased the driving instructor down the street, which is funny in hindsight, but at the time it wasn’t funny at all.”
Boy George recently opened up about his childhood in an interview with The Independent, commenting: “My father beat my mother so badly, and these were girls that could stand up for themselves. Any woman that didn’t take s*** was a goddess to me.
“And whether it was Joan Collins or some woman on TV putting out a cigarette in a plate of prawns, I wanted my mum to be that woman; to say, ‘I’m leaving.’ Of course, there was no escape.”
The sense that his mother was trapped fed into his love of drag, he said “She wasn’t allowed to be glamorous, but she was beautiful and stylish and unfortunately, my dad knocked it out of her. When I was a kid, I’d go mental with excitement if my mum was dressed up.”
