George Michael on drug-taking  and cruising for sex with strangers on Hampstead Heath: ‘It’s just who I am’

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:20 PM on 05th December 2009

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George Michael today spoke candidly of his drug use and cruising for sex with strangers, saying ‘it’s just who I am’.

The former Wham! star confirmed he was caught in possession of crack cocaine when arrested last year in public toilets on Hampstead Heath, a gay cruising area close to his home in north London.

But asked when he had last smoked the class A drug, the singer declined to answer.

He told The Guardian newspaper he had cut back on cannabis and now smokes only ’seven or eight’ spliffs per day instead of the 25 he used to smoke.

The 46-year-old defended ‘cottaging’ on the Heath, saying it was ‘nicer’ than picking up men in bars.

‘The handful of times a year it’s bloody warm enough, I’ll do it. I’ll do it on a nice summer evening. Quite often there are campfires up there,’ he said.

‘It’s a much nicer place to get some quick and honest sex than standing in a bar, E’d off your tits (high on ecstasy) shouting at somebody and hoping they want the same thing as you do in bed.’

Asked why he cruises for sex when he could get any gay man he wanted, George replied: ‘I do get anyone I want. But I like a bit of everything. I have friends up there, I have a laugh.’

Over the last decade Michael has had a number of run-ins with the law.

In 1998, he was arrested in public toilets in Los Angeles for ‘engaging in a lewd act’ and was cautioned for possessing cannabis after being found asleep at the wheel of his car on two separate occasions in 2006.

He said: ‘I had a problem with sleeping pills for about a year and a half, and I f***** up really badly.

‘I got in the car twice when I’d forgotten I’d already downed something to try to get me to sleep. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t deliberate – ultimately, I did it a second time, and I could have killed somebody.

‘But the fact remains I was never accused of driving under the influence. I got done for exhaustion and sleeping pills.’

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