Boy George: "when sober and free from drugs, a kind and generous man"
From The Independent, UK
(...) George O'Dowd, who was a household name a generation ago as Boy George, lead singer of Culture Club, was sentenced yesterday to 15 months in jail for false imprisonment, after he chained and beat a man (Norwegian male escort, Audun Carlsen, 28) in a cocaine-fuelled outburst of paranoid fury.
O'Dowd, who is now 47, listened impassively as Judge David Radford explained why he was going against the advice of experts who had recommended a suspended prison sentence and unpaid community work. Although the judge said news that O'Dowd had kicked his cocaine habit was "welcome", he described the singer-turned-DJ's attack on a male escort as "an act of wholly gratuitous violence" which left his victim "shocked, degraded and traumatised".(...)
(O'Dowd's counsel told The Independent:) "There is something of an irony in that Mr Carlsen will make money out of this while the cost to the defendant is enormous. He will probably now never be permitted to perform in the United States or Japan, where he has an enormous – I believe the word is – fan base. Not only will he lose the money but, more importantly, the chance to do what he loves.(...)"
Aaaaaawwww...
Boy George HAS a fan base? Has his lawyer paid any attention to pop culture since the year 1991?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly
Corrected it. Sorry. Still, he had one optimistic lawyer.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly
True enough. Thanks for that post, martin.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly
Interesting. I'm more kind and generous the less sober and less drug-free I get.
P.S. On a more serious note, I agree with what martin has said, but a part of me wonders if there is a specific singling out of Boy George because of homophobia. To be clear, his behaviour was deplorable and I'm not minimizing in any way what he did. But how many straight rock/music stars do this shit, and worse, and it gets framed as non-news, "she must have asked for it" kind of thing or we don't even hear about it.
Perhaps. I understand that judicial severity is graduated according to past offences and the article mentions O'Dowd's criminal background. This may be an explanation. I recall that Paul Francis Gadd (Gary Glitter) also got media exposure (and nearly 3 years in jail) for having sexually abused 11 and 12-yr old Vietamese girls. Although a glam-rock icon, I don't think he ever identified as gay.
I would say that licentious White heterosexual stars seem to get forgiven easier: Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, etc.
Polanski is a convicted child molestor-why do you mention Woody Allen's name in the same sentence-are you drunk?
15 months is a pretty light sentence, given the past track record of Mr. George regarding substance abuse, and the nature of the offense.
This latest example clearly indicates that George is a sadist and predator, whose moments of being substance abuse free are rare in the past decades. I'd give anyone who exhibits this kind of behavior a long, long time out to protect society.
In Polanski's case, I'm not sure he got a free ride or continues to get a free ride from U.S. justice, but deffinately a free ride from the French government, who has always chosen not to allow Polanski's extradition to the U.S. How the French government has rationalized giving safe harbour to a person who drugged and sexually assaulted a 13 year old is perplexing, and does nothing to enhance the reputation of that nation.
I had to wiki the details of Woody Allen. It seems to me that the difficulty here is that Allen must have had some pretty high priced and expert legal advice at almost every step of the way, which speaks to some pretty dark premeditation. But that's speculation on my part.
It seems to me the District Attourney measured the evidence they had on Allen against the financial resources Allen could muster for a legal deffence, and decided not to prosecute as vigorously as they might someone with less resources. Again, I speculate.