Boy George was Always This Awful
Sid Shniad
Boy George was Always This Awful
The Culture Club front man has come out with a song denying the genocide in Gaza and supporting Israel as it carries it out.
I grew up listening to Boy George. Singing along to "Time" and "Church of the Poison Mind." I used to see him as an icon. An avantgarde rebel for queer liberation.
But then he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for imprisoning Audun Carlsen, a Norwegian model and escort. For handcuffing him to a wall and beating him with a metal chain. And I saw who he was.
So, it isn’t very surprising that he has come out in support of a genocidal regime. The truth is, he has always been this awful.
20 years ago, I was in a restaurant in London when Boy George came in with his entourage. They sat at a table in the back. Young men came in, one after the other, to his table with backpacks. Then they would leave without even sitting down. The implication being that he was purchasing illicit drugs. And while I have absolutely no problem with drug use, it provided me another snapshot of the man. How he used people. How these young men were merely vehicles for his immediate pleasure. Easily discardable.
Boy George is now under fire again following the release of his new song “We will dance again." It begins:
“You say genocide, I say war
When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for
Does it get ugly? You bet it does
When I know you wanna kill every last one of us.”
This is what he is singing as Israeli politicians openly boast about killing all Palestinians and IDF soldiers proudly post their crimes online. As Israel ethnically cleanses the occupied West Bank and Southern Lebanon. As a Palestinian mother wails over the torn body of her daughter. As a Palestinian father carries the remains of his son in a plastic bag. As Israel bombs, burns alive, buries under rubble, starves and tortures hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including tens of thousands of children, in Gaza.
Boy George now joins the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Jerry Seinfeld, Debra Messing, Mayim Bialik, Chris Pine, Helen Mirren and Michael Douglas. A pantheon of celebrities who sold out. Who chose to side with a genocidal oppressor. And who have forever cemented their legacies as soulless ghouls decisively on the wrong side of history and humanity.
Kenn Maurice Orfanos, July 2026