George Michael believed his life was “a waste of time” and thought of music as a “controlling lover.”
“I had a desperate ambition as a child to be famous,” he said in the documentary Freedom, which will be broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK on Oct. 16.
“But if I was looking for happiness, that was the wrong road. I can’t explain how overwhelming that kind of hysteria can be. Suddenly it’s scary. Ten months of that was enough to push me to the edge.”
Michael also revealed that he never fully got over losing boyfriend Anselmo Feleppa to AIDS in 1993.
“He still, 23 years later, brings a tear to my eye,” the singer said. “He was my saviour.”
Michael was instantly smitten by Feleppa when he spotted him in the crowd at Rock in Rio. “The moment I look at him I got the feeling he was going to be a part of my life,” he recalled.
The pop star said their relationship was the first time he “really loved someone selflessly” and enabled him to feel comfortable with his sexuality.
“It's very hard to be proud of your own sexuality when it hasn't brought you any joy,” said Michael. “Once it's associated with joy and love it's easy to be proud of who you are.”
Michael said he fell into depression when Feleppa got sick. “I was absolutely devastated … just devastated,” he shared. “I felt so bloody picked on by God. I took it very badly, very badly indeed.”
At the end of Freedom — which Michael had been working on only days before his death last Christmas — he said he hopes people will remember him as someone “who had some kind of integrity.”
But, he added, that’s “very unlikely.”
Michael said: “I think it’s all been a waste of time, a waste of effort.”