The troubled life of George Michael: Drugs, run-ins with the police and health problems

Dec. 25, 2016 9:23 PM PT

Gossip
Dec. 25, 2016, 9:23 p.m.

The troubled life of George Michael: Drugs, run-ins with the police and health problems

George Michael performs in Abu Dhabi in 2008. (Karim Sahib / AFP-Getty Images)

George Michael, who died peacefully at his home in Goring, England, according to his publicist, had run into legal and health troubles during the last decade. The Ministry of Gossip blog documented many of the stories.

2010: George Michael charged with pot possession, unfit driving

George Michael, arrested after a July car wreck in London, was charged Thursday with pot possession and impaired driving, according to London’s Metropolitan Police.

The singer, 47, had waited for police to arrive after allegedly ramming his Range Rover into a storefront on July 6. At the time, the Daily Mail reported that Michael had not been drinking and was not given a breath test.

2010: George Michael released after four weeks in prison

Singer George Michael was released from prison Monday after serving four weeks of an eight-week sentence for driving under the influence of drugs.

“I’m coming out here on my own so that you realize I just want to start again,” Michael said Monday to members of the media gathered outside his home in North London, according to multiple reports. “I’m going to try and stop running away from you guys.” He also thanked those who supported him, calling it “quite inspiring.”

2011: George Michael thanks doctors for saving his life [Video]

George Michael, short of breath while speaking to reporters outside his London home on Friday, thanked doctors in Austria for their care during “by far, the worst month” of his life, and hinted at the dire nature of his condition while he’d been in the hospital.

“They spent three weeks keeping me alive, basically,” said the singer, 48, who had to cancel a number of dates at the end of his Symphonica tour after contracting streptococcus pneumonia. He was taken to AKH Hospital in late November, nixing his Nov. 21 show just two hours before it was to start.

Michael, who was released from the hospital Thursday and looked thin on camera Friday, said he was still weak but felt “amazing.”

2012: George Michael explains post-coma accent, shreds Rupert Murdoch

George Michael is delighted to be alive, but when he came back to life out of a coma last December, he spent a couple of days speaking in an accent that wasn’t his own.

While doctors worried that he had brain damage following a horrid bout with pneumonia that included days in a coma, Michael told Britain’s LBC radio, it turned out the London-born chap was just channeling a “Bristolian,” West Country accent from a British comedy called “Nighty Night,” which he’d been watching regularly with a friend shortly before falling so ill in Austria.

When he awoke and doctors asked him if he knew who he was, he said he answered, “King of the world?”