Boy George was asked about his criminal past on Wednesday night's I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!
The English musician's 2009 arrest was a hot topic amongst his campmates on the ITV reality show. George, 61, went to jail in connection with an attack on a man he handcuffed to a wall on a drug-crazed night.
Boy George, whose real name is George O’Dowd, pleaded not guilty to false imprisonment but was convicted of assault and false imprisonment and jailed for 15 months. He has time and again denied a court claim that he beat the man with a chain, the Irish Mirror reports.
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George said he was on cocaine and had a psychotic breakdown during the time of the attack. He was released from prison after four months for good behaviour with an ankle tag.
George said he sought treatment after that and has been drug-free since. On Wednesday night's episode, campmate Scarlette Douglas asked George about "some guy in handcuffs and a radiator".
George instantly insisted there were "no radiators" involved to which Scarlette said: "Oh, just the handcuffs."
He said that was true before adding: "But the radiator bit wasn’t true, but thanks for bringing it up." Scarlette said: "Sorry, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was a fake story,” to which George replied: "Sometimes these things, they go into the ether, and people keep saying them and they become folklore."
George then said: "I think if it was true I wouldn’t be working now."
Scarlette said: "I don’t even know what the full story was, I just remember hearing handcuffs and radiator."
So what actually happened?
According to court reports, George was sentenced to 15 months in jail for falsely imprisoning a male escort on January 16, 2009. The court heard he had handcuffed the man to a wall and began beating him.
The Guardian reported that the presiding judge told the then 47-year-old former Culture Club frontman that he had left the escort "shocked, degraded, and traumatised" by the ordeal.
The victim, Audun Carlsen, who was a 29-year-old Norwegian model, had been invited by George to his flat in London after meeting on a dating app in April 2007. Judge David Radford said the singer's offence was "so serious that only an immediate sentence of imprisonment can be justified”.
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He said the events were "callous and humiliating" before adding that Carlsen had been "deprived of his liberty and his human dignity". The jury was told George had asked Audun into his bedroom after a naked photo session, during which they both allegedly took cocaine.
With the help of an unnamed man, he then allegedly ambushed Audun, who said the atmosphere changed when George came back to the flat after leaving to buy milk and cigarettes.
Audun managed to break free when the fixture on the wall came loose, he told the jury, but said he was then beaten by the singer as he tried to flee the home.
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