Yorgos Kyriakos Panayiotou

Legendary British singer, formerly of the band Wham! George Michael was born on June 25, 1963 in the UK, in the town of Finchley, which is located in North London. In fact, the name George Michael is nothing more than a stage name, since in reality the artist was named Georgios Kyriakos Panayiotou.

George's father, Kyriakos Panayiotou, was a Cypriot who emigrated to Britain in the 50s and married an Englishwoman, Leslie Engold Harrison. My father ran a small restaurant with Greek cuisine, while my mother was a dancer.

In addition to George, the family had two more children - sisters Melanie and Yoda, who were older than him. As a result, it was the sisters who were engaged in raising the child, since the parents did not have time for this due to their high employment at work.

The image of a sex symbol in maturity runs counter to what the singer was in childhood - George Michael was forced to wear glasses due to poor eyesight, his complexion could not be called athletic, which is why he was constantly attacked by his peers. To all the problems was added the need to learn to play the violin, which the future star did not like very much.

Michael wanted to become a star since childhood, literally from the age of 7, while playing the violin did not bring much pleasure, especially since he was left-handed. At that time, George repeated or tried to reproduce all the tunes that he heard on the radio. The father did not share his son's hobbies, unlike his mother, who provided the strongest support in his career and presented a voice recorder with a recording function.

The band Queen and Elton John had a strong influence on the singer and his further style. An abrupt change in life came after moving to Hertfordshire, entering a new school and meeting Andrew Ridgley, who was of Egyptian roots. The acquaintance happened in 1975, Ridgley was specially assigned to Michael to help him get comfortable. This was a turning point in the artist's life.

The singer has changed a lot in appearance, stopped wearing glasses, lost weight. The revision of his attitude to himself and to life became the reason that Michael had new hobbies, because of which there was no place for study.

Instead of lessons, Michael, Ridgley and mutual friend David Austin gathered at the Green Park underground station to entertain passengers with covers of Beatles, David Bowie songs and their own creations. This gradually developed into the formation of The Executive. In addition to those listed, the team consisted of Andrew Leaver and Paul Ridgley.

This collective especially did not become famous, having released only one hit - Rude Boy. The group could not stay for long, but the members managed to develop the foundation for the formation of Wham !, as during their work at The Executive, many songs were created for future Wham! Albums.

The famous pop duo was signed to the promising label Innervision Records in 1982. In the same period, the pseudonym "George Michael" was taken. The image of the group is rich life-makers, respectively, their work was aimed more at young people. This is confirmed by the video clips for the debut songs: "Club Tropicana", "Bad Boys", which became the hallmark of the group.

The first album was called Fantastic. After the initial success, the decision was made to move to Epic, after signing a contract with which, the band members began to receive much more royalties than they had previously.

A short break in creativity happened at the end of 1983, and it lasted until May 1984. Until that time, a new image of the group was being developed, and work was also underway on a new album, which was called Make It Big. It became popular within the UK as well, reaching number one on various charts. The best creation from the album became a video. We are talking about the clip "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go", which has become a cult.

The next two years were the most successful for the group, since it was during this period that such famous songs as "Careless Whisper", "Freedom" and of course "Last Christmas" were released, which for a long time became a kind of anthem of this holiday.

George's disagreements with the producers over the inconsistency of the image of a hooligan teenager imposed on him with his inner state of romance led to the collapse of the group, despite its peak in popularity. The band's albums ended on the album "The Final", which broke all sales records - they amounted to 40 million copies.

As a solo singer, Michael made his debut in 1984 with the song "Careless Whisper", but full-length solo performances began after the group's disbandment in 1986. Then the album Faith was released, which received all the significant music awards that year, including the Grammy.

The second album, "Listen Without Prejudice, Vol 1", turned out to be less successful, although there were several famous songs. The artist considered that he was not to blame for the failure, as a performer and author, but the record label Sony, which, according to him, did not promote the album properly. This led to lawsuits between the artist and the label, and due to the fact that the case was lost, Michael stopped creating until the expiration of his contract with Sony.

From that moment on, his career began to decline, and only six years later the album "Older" was released, which partially interested listeners in Europe. The best songs to celebrate are Jesus To A Child and Fastlove. Then there were only collections of the best songs, like "Ladies And Gentlemen: The Best Of George Michael" in 1998 and like "Songs From The Last Century". It was 1999.

The release in 2003 of the scandalous video Freeek !, which was very expensive, can be considered a relative breakthrough after the stagnation. The success of the video led to the successful debut of Patience in 2004. In 2006, the singer for the first time in fifteen years went on a world tour with concerts. In 2014, the sixth and last album, "Symphonica", was released, the music of which delighted fans.

Hints of non-traditional sexual orientation have been around for a long time. Michael said he was afraid of how his family would react. In 1991, the singer had an affair with the designer Anselmo Feleppa, from whom he contracted HIV.

The hints were indirectly confirmed on the "Older" album. Around the same time, Michael's image changed, he began to wear a short hairstyle and leather vestments. It was especially hard in the mid-90s, when the mother passed away, and there were also attacks from the press.

In 1998, the singer decided to make a public announcement that he was gay. He had a relationship at that time with a businessman from Dallas, Kenny Goss. Unfortunately, later their photos in the tabloids became more interesting to people than songs, clips, albums or concerts.

On December 25, 2016, George Michael died in his own home, at the time of his death he was 54 years old. It happened in Oxfordshire. Michael's cause of death is a heart attack.

1983 - Fantastic 1984 - Make It Big 1986 - Music from the Edge of Heaven 1987 - Faith 1990 - Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 1996 - Older 1999 - Songs From The Last Century 2004 - Patience 2014 - Symphonica

Yorgos Kyriakos Panayiotou 's estimated Net Worth, Salary, Income, Cars, Lifestyles & many more details have been updated below.

Let's check, How Rich is Yorgos Kyriakos Panayiotou in 2020 ?

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It is an overall forecast for the net worth of Yorgos Kyriakos Panayiotou. The evaluation covers the latest 5 years and an approximation for next year. See above to learn how much money does Yorgos Kyriakos Panayiotou makes a year.

The range above shows an estimation based on evaluation generated by public information about sponsorships or other sources found on the internet. It's summarized data from Yorgos Kyriakos Panayiotou's projects existing in AidWiki's repository. It's an approximation of the revenue compiled by AidWiki and may not correspond with the real amount.