Recommendations of the Editorial team
An archive text from 2023.
George Michael’s childhood friend and close confidant, Andros Georgiou, claims that the ex-Wham! singer would still be alive if his first great love, Anselmo Feleppa, had not died of AIDS in 1993.
“He was pretty lost after Anselmo’s death.”
George Michael and Georgiu grew up together and both pursued musical paths. Both made careers in the industry and even went on tour together. The duo were so close that George Michael referred to Georgiou as his unofficial “cousin.” Georgiou spoke in the interview about how things might have turned out differently if Michael’s first great love Anselmo Feleppa hadn’t died tragically.
Speaking to the Mirror, he said: “Anselmo Feleppa was the love of his life and if he hadn’t died, George Michael would probably still be here. After Anselmo Feleppa, George Michael didn’t really find love, he had a lot of sex and met a lot of people, but he never found what he had with Anselmo. I saw how happy they were. I think he was pretty lost after Anselmo died, it hit him hard.”
Michael met his first love at the age of 27
George Michael met Feleppa, a fashion designer, in a hotel lobby in the early 1990s. The former “Wham!” singer was 27 years old at the time. He has revealed in the past that he knew shortly after the first meeting that Anselmo Feleppa was terminally ill. Speaking on Desert Island Discs in 2007, the singer continued: “It was a very strange first love. It was very distorted by the situation. It was the first love of my life. It was tragic that I lost him, but it was a wonderful experience to meet him. It’s only happened three times that I’ve really fallen in love with someone. And every time it clicked at first sight and told me that I was going to meet this person. It was the same with Anselmo in the lobby.”
It was the fifth anniversary of Michael’s death
George Michael himself died in the early hours of Christmas Day 2016, aged just 53. He was found dead in his bed in Oxfordshire by his friend Fadi Fawaz. The hairstylist said at the time: “We were actually going to Christmas dinner. I went to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed.” One of the most famous George Michael or Wham! songs, Last Christmas, recently received its astonishingly first number 1 placement in the German single charts.
