George Michael wanted to have a hardcore version of his 1998 “Outside” video produced. Vaughan Arnell, the director of several of the Wham! singer’s music videos, said this in an interview for the upcoming documentary “George Michael: Portrait of an Artist.”
“He wanted to develop it further to make a second video that would be a more hardcore version of it,” Arnell told Channel 4. The actual video begins with a shot of a clip from a Scandinavian porno before focusing on George Michael dancing in a public toilet dressed as a police officer.
Both the song and video were a response to Michael’s arrest in 1998 after the singer committed “lewd acts” with an undercover police officer in a public restroom. He was fined £500 and ordered to carry out 80 hours of community service. The incident led to Michael’s public confession that he was homosexual.
Many parts of the video were filmed from the air and show people also getting close in public. “Sometimes we even filmed full penetration, which was quite a lot for such a controlled city,” explains Arnell, referring to LA, where the clip was filmed. “The idea was to expand the video and make it into a porn film, but it ended up never being made. I think it was discarded.”
After his coming out, George Michael opened up about his sex life. He told BBC Radio 4 at the time that hiding his sexuality felt like “cheating” and that getting caught having sex in public was probably a “subconsciously premeditated act.”
George Michael died in 2016 at the age of 53. George Michael: Profile of an Artist will be released initially on Channel 4 on September 17th.