Quotes from Boy George

As an outsider, you don't think of Australia as being old-fashioned - it's only when you've been here for a period of time when you realise there are issues.

I knew that I was different when I was six years old, but it wasn't until I got to about 10 or 11 that I realised I was a gay man.

School is not a great place to have feminine features or a big nose, or to wear glasses or the wrong shoes.

My coming of age was in the '70s. A lot of people look back on it as a grim decade, but I look back on it as a liberating time.

School is a scary place for kids. So I didn't like it, and I didn't want to be there. And it was a great day for me when they threw me out.

I was sick. I had a polyp on my throat. It would have been foolish for me to go out on the road with the problem I had.

I might be being controversial, but I think Seal fancies the pants off Delta, and her pants are tight.

I also tried to avoid doing obvious dance records.

A lot of people felt I was getting work because I was Boy George. My response at the time was that there's a lot of DJs making records, they're not all making good records, but they have the right to do that.

I've grown up very much living my life very visibly. I've never really hidden who I am.

I just eat healthy and try not to eat late at night. And I exercise as well. That's a big change for me; I work out a lot.

In the early part of the '70s, we had glam rock, but we also had reggae and ska happening at the same time. I just took all those influences I had as a kid and threw them together, and somehow it works.

My audience here in America is so eclectic. It's a real mix of people, which is great. Like what I was doing with Culture Club - world music, multiculturalism - not defining everything in terms of sexuality or color. It was about everyone coming together and being part of something.

You have to eat at a certain time and eat properly.

People say things about me all the time and I get over it. I've had some appalling things told about me.

I've never shied away from country. 'Karma Chameleon' verges on country. Reggae and country are very closely linked. If you go to Jamaica, you hear a lot of country music. There's a correlation.

People like my honesty. When I'm sane, I'm very much myself.

There's a guy in London named Ben Cohen who is doing great things. In a way, we need people like Ben - we need straight guys to come out and say, 'What're you worried about? Get over yourself.' That's what we need! Because no one's listening to us - certainly, no one is listening to me.

Part of me looks at the gay movement now and worries that we're losing our individuality.

There's always going to be something said that hurts you.

I would rather have a cup of tea than sex.

I have the best job in the world. There's not really a lot to moan or whine about. I've got the privilege of going out and doing something I absolutely love.

Let's face it: I've got a bit of a reputation.

Sometimes, having a reputation can be the best thing because people expect you to be really difficult, perhaps a bit caustic, and hard work - and I'm none of those things.