Original subtitles

I have never met a star

who didn't come from the same kind of insecurity.

Man: Mm-hmm. You know, it's the things

that are missing that make you a star.

It's not the things that you have.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

George Michael -- musical genius,

singer, songwriter,

a charitable and legendary international superstar

but haunted by demons.

He had the voice of a maestro

but the darkness of extreme regret,

all of which turned him into a tabloid target.

Deeply dispirited and all alone behind the doors

of his country home on Christmas Eve,

George Michael went to sleep and never woke up.

This is how it really happened.

♪♪

Halperin: You know that song "Last Christmas"?

It's one of George Michael's most famous songs of all time.

♪ Last Christmas, I gave you my heart ♪

♪ The very next day, you gave it away ♪

Halperin: He loved Christmas so much.

It was his favorite day of the year,

and the saddest part of everything is,

he died on Christmas.

♪♪

Telling: George and his boyfriend, Fadi Fawaz,

began spending a lot of his time at his country house.

Velez-Mitchell: Which is halfway between London and Oxford.

It's a gorgeous area, very traditional,

and it being Christmastime,

there was this huge parade past his home,

and everyone's carrying torches.

And so it's just very spectacular.

Steele: One night, I saw him looking out the window,

and it's a very sad, kind of ghostly image,

just caught his face behind the glass

sort of looking at the world but detached from it.

Fadi Fawaz seems to have been the final regular boyfriend

in the last decade of George's life.

Velez-Mitchell: Fadi said he had been there that weekend,

and he'd gone out on Christmas Eve.

And the next day, Christmas Day,

at about noon, a little bit after noon,

he goes in to wake George Michael up,

and he can't wake him up.

Steele: He makes a hurried phone call

to the emergency services in Oxfordshire at 1:42 p.m.

My goodness, what's going on? What happened to George Michael?

♪♪

Michael: Good evening, London!

This is the last night.

Everyone around the world knew who he was.

Moret: He was sexy. He had a great voice.

He had a swagger about him.

I defy you to watch the video "Faith" and not think,

"That is a cool guy."

♪ Yes, I got to have faith ♪

♪ Ooh, I got to have faith ♪

Oh, my God.

George Michael was serving it, choreography and everything.

♪ I got to have faith, faith, faith ♪

He was suddenly a real sex symbol.

I mean, everyone remembers those ripped jeans and the aviators.

I was so impressed with his work.

I was in awe of his talent.

Woman: George! We love you, George!

George, we love you! George, we love you!

George Michael was born in East Finchley, London.

His father was a restaurateur.

His mother, Lesley, was a dancer.

It was at age 7 she even started encouraging him to sing.

She thought he had talent.

She was extremely sensitive and proud

that her son had a liking toward art and music.

When George was 12, they moved to the suburbs,

and that's where he met Andrew Ridgeley.

Michael: What did I first think of him?

I thought he was pretty loud,

you know, brash, young thing.

You admired him, in other words?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I thought, "Now, there's a boy I want to sit next to."

They hit it off really well.

George Michael always knew he wanted to write music.

Andrew Ridgeley always knew he wanted to be famous.

Napier-Bell: Andrew was like the lad about the classroom,

the one who made everybody laugh,

and he was good-looking and handsome.

And George looked at him, "oh, I want to be like that."

Telling: By the time they were 16,

they decided to pursue their dreams

and started mapping out their future as pop stars.

Halperin: Andrew Ridgeley really was the influence

to George Michael to convince him

he had what it took to become a singing superstar.

Especially people who managed to get tickets,

you know, we'd love to have seen everyone off personally,

but can't do it.

One day, you're a kid going to school

and then, boom, WHAM!

Napier-Bell: I met WHAM! first

after I'd seen them on "Top of the Pops."

The very first thing they did when they walked in the room

was for George to look at us and say,

"Can you make us the biggest stars in the world?

You've got one year."

Their first hit was "Young Guns."

♪ Well, I hadn't seen your face around town awhile ♪

♪ So I greeted you with a knowing smile ♪

♪ When I saw that girl upon your arm ♪

♪ I knew she'd won your heart with a fatal charm ♪

♪ I said, "Soul Boy" ♪

Halperin: It exploded.

Nobody had ever seen a group like WHAM!

arrive on the scene, exude so much sexuality.

They were so cute and young and charming and exuberant,

and they were optimistic, and the songs were poppy.

They became overnight sensations.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is WHAM!

[ Cheers and applause ]

On "American Bandstand," you take one look at him,

and you say, "That guy's a star."

♪ You got soul on the Dole? ♪

♪ You're gonna have a good time down on the line ♪

♪ I said get, get, get on down ♪

♪ I said get, get, get on down ♪

Kahane: I saw WHAM! come on and do their show,

and I realized immediately that George's voice

and his skills onstage were far beyond his years.

I was blown away.

Halperin: The records were just flying off the shelves,

and women were going crazy.

Young girls wanted to marry the members of WHAM!

They were obsessed with Andrew and George.

Who's hotter, Andrew or George?

Telling: He had these women throwing themselves at him,

and he didn't quite know how to react to that.

I was seriously underdeveloped emotionally,

never had any crushes on anyone at school,

never fell in love at school.

DeCurtis: There was always kind of, you know,

ambiguity to his sexuality.

Yeah, but that was just fine.

I mean, you know, everybody liked it.

You know, the boys liked it. The girls liked it.

The biggest thing was ♪ wake me up before you go go ♪

♪ Because I'm not planning on going solo ♪

♪ Wake me up before you go go ♪

♪ Take me dancing tonight ♪

♪ I want to hit that high! ♪

Telling: It was really their second album --

"WHAM! Make It Big" -- that everybody remembers.

It came out in 1984, and it had the hits like

"Everything She Wants," "Freedom," "Careless Whisper."

♪ Time can never mend ♪

♪ The careless whispers of the good friend ♪

George Michael just had a kind of sophistication

as a vocalist, even when he was doing

the most sugary kind of pop.

He managed to bring that across in a way

that was convincing and fun.

It shows the real brilliance of George Michael.

his sensitivity and his profoundness

in cultivating a song.

He was a genius.

Napier-Bell: A lot of people say,

"What did Andrew do in the group?

It was all George. He wrote the songs.

He performed. He was the singer."

That's rubbish.

The image of WHAM! is really Andrew,

that happy-go-lucky lad around town.

George was a copycat of Andrew.

So the image of WHAM! was the real Andrew

and the fake Andrew.

And the image of a group is, in the end,

really more important than the music.

There's no question that George Michael

was the major talent in WHAM!

But that doesn't mean that Andrew Ridgeley

wasn't important.

His importance was significant in emotional terms.

He needed Andrew there.

Right from the beginning with WHAM!,

George had in mind that WHAM!

would be like a 3- or 4-year period.

Reporter: You can see behind me, people are still coming.

We've seen them this morning laying flowers,

messages, candles, some people just weeping openly.

Their grief, well, it's pretty extraordinary.

They're all here because George Michael

meant so very much to them.

They all want to know why he died at such a young age.

He would constantly have this fear of dying young.

He said, "I know I'm going to."

I said, "Why do you say that?"

And he said, "I don't know. I just know it."

When WHAM! were invited to play in China in 1985,

it was a huge deal.

Nobody had even thought of playing China.

Napier-Bell: Being the biggest stars in the world

means being the biggest star in America, too.

My partner said, "Well, maybe we can find a gimmick.

Maybe we can make you the first Western pop group

ever to play in Communist China."

And George said, "Yep, I like that.

Do that."

When the concert took place in Beijing,

there were over 118 television crews from around the world.

Halperin: I think it's the biggest accomplishment

of the legacy of WHAM!

was to go to China and do the "Freedom" video

and the "Freedom" song.

No other Western artist had performed in China.

♪ I don't want your freedom ♪

♪ I don't need to play around ♪

Napier-Bell: It did exactly what we wanted because,

in the course of two weeks,

WHAM! were broken totally in America.

Halperin: It was unparalleled.

It just set them so further apart than everybody else.

They were real, true innovators.

Right from the beginning with WHAM!,

George had in mind that WHAM!

would be, like, a 3- or 4-year period.

DeCurtis: George Michael was mature enough as an artist

to not need WHAM!

He had outgrown what that collaboration represented,

but emotionally,

I don't think he was necessarily in that place.

Kahane: George said, "I know you're not gonna like this,

but there is no more WHAM!"

And I took a pause, and I said,

"Well, of course there's a WHAM! I mean --"

"No, no, there is no more WHAM!

I've just broken up WHAM!

WHAM! is me."

DeCurtis: George Michael was ready to go out on his own,

but I think some of the things that he needed from Andrew

from a partnership maybe weren't so apparent to him until later.

I think he felt kind of exposed and isolated.

The bigger he got,

in a sense, the shakier the ground underneath him felt.

He always felt inside himself a bit of a fraud,

and I think more and more and more bubbling inside himself

was the feeling of being this slightly fake character.

He wasn't really George Michael he was projecting.

He was projecting this copycat image of Andrew.

No regrets about splitting up,

so with a huge thank you to everyone,

not only today but for the last four years.

Halperin: I don't think that either of them

wanted to continue in the WHAM! vein.

They thought they'd exhausted it completely,

and there wasn't much more to say.

Are you jealous of his solo success?

Don't mention the solo.

No, I feel I'm a big part of it.

You know, actually, we did write the record together.

Hilton: George went solo,

and he went from being one of the biggest stars on the planet

to beingthe star on the planet.

George Michael's first solo album, "Faith,"

which came out in 1987...

♪ I got to have faith ♪

♪ Ooh, I got to have faith ♪

♪ Because I got to have faith, faith, faith ♪

It was a breakthrough, you know, a dramatic breakthrough.

♪ Before this river ♪

Velez-Mitchell: Then he does something

very bold and very brave.

♪ Wait for something more ♪

In "Faith," he releases "I Want Your Sex."

♪ I want your sex ♪

And that was the moment where he was like,

"I've got the world's attention."

♪ When you tell me that you're going to regret it ♪

♪ Then I tell you that I love you, but you still say, "No"! ♪

I originally was not for that being the first single,

but George said, "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

♪ Sex is best when it's... ♪

♪ One on one ♪

Kahane: He wanted to let everybody know

that "I Want Your Sex"

wasn't about not being responsible for sex

but about being with one person.

♪ One on one ♪

Telling: That single was banned in the U.K.

and the U.S. for a little while.

They changed it to "I Want Your Love"

when they were playing it on the radio.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Napier-Bell: He made $50 million

on his first solo tour of America.

He was there at the very top of the top two

or three artists in the world.

Lobel: Every city we went to was sold out.

At the end of each show, the fans were left breathless

from this experience of the "Faith" show

that they had just witnessed.

It was electrifying.

Michael: That's right.

We had five number one hit singles on that record --

"I Want Your Sex," "Faith," "Father Figure," "Monkey"...

♪ Monkey, monkey, monkey ♪

..."Kissing a Fool," "One More Try."

♪ I wrote this song ♪

♪ I know it's wrong ♪

♪ Just let me go ♪

He was very competitive and more so every time

the charts would come out.

"Did we go to number one?"

And, "Did we jump this artist?

Did we knock Michael Jackson and Prince down?"

"Yes."

He was...all about winning.

Lobel: George didn't want to hang backstage and socialize.

He just wanted to go back to the room and be alone,

and I think that time alone was just something

that would wear on him day after day.

There was a tortured soul inside.

People have been coming in all day.

There's been a steady stream of fans really in shock

about the death of the 53-year-old George Michael.

Reporter #2: Local police say they were called to the scene

after someone found Michael unresponsive.

They say that they are treating his death

as unexpected but not suspicious.

I am confused as to what the totality of his death was.

What, his heart stopped all of a sudden?

Sorry. I don't buy it.

[ Cheers and applause ]

DeCurtis: George Michael, he skyrocketed,

and, you know, in commercial terms

and even artistic terms, I mean, he did very well.

But emotionally, I think he struggled with all that.

The "Faith" tour was one of the most amazing concert tours

I'd ever witnessed in my life,

and the adulation that he would get,

and then he'd go back to his hotel room,

close the door and be alone.

George didn't want to hang backstage and socialize.

I think that time alone was just something

that would wear on him day after day,

you know, all around the world,

from Australia to Europe to the U.S. to Canada,

going back to your hotel room alone

and not being who you really are.

Kahane: Yeah, there was something missing from his life.

I knew he was -- you know, he was feeling lonely.

When I was younger, because I suppose

I was so confused about my sexuality

and other things,

I suppose I was prone to loneliness

and depression around loneliness

because it is very lonely if you're surrounded by people,

but you're not really surrounded by anyone.

Telling: George always struggled with his sexuality.

At a young age, he thought he might be bisexual,

and he told a few people, and he dated women.

I remember being at the hotel on a weekend poolside with Rob,

and this is two-thirds through the tour,

and Rob suddenly asked me...

"Do you think that George is gay?"

I said, "Well, Rob, yes, I believe he is gay."

I found out as the tour rolled along

that George was very unhappy, and it became obvious to me

why because, you know, he was so in the closet.

As a gay man, holding that secret,

holding onto that secret, then having fame,

I can only imagine the pressure with that.

He was a tortured soul.

Velez-Mitchell: He was keeping this deep, dark secret.

But then he falls in love.

Telling: George Michael met Anselmo Feleppa in 1991.

It was in Brazil at the Rock in Rio concert.

Anselmo was this spirit we all wished

we carried around with us.

George was incredibly happy with Anselmo, incredibly.

He was the part that George was missing in his life.

The day that I knew that I was gay was the day

that I knew that I was in love with a man.

Kahane: I've never seen him happier in my life.

♪♪

Halperin: People weren't ready for an artist

of George Michael's stature,

who women went gaga over for so many years, to just come out.

It would have been career suicide for him to come out

and say, "I am gay."

Lemon: You may go, "Well, why wouldn't he just come out?"

You just didn't do that then.

It didn't happen.

There were very few people who were out and proud in the '80s.

But then his lover becomes ill

six months into the relationship.

Telling: Anselmo found out that he had HIV,

and George was devastated.

Imagine the horror of waiting all your life for love,

for authentic love,

and then within months, your lover says,

"I have a deadly disease."

But George stuck by him, and he helped him.

He was by his side 24/7.

Anselmo dies in 1993,

shattering George Michael.

He goes into a deep depression,

and he has depression in his family history,

so this is a real struggle,

and he begins to medicate with Prozac and pot,

and he describes this as a very dark time.

Halperin: People close to him admit

that that perhaps was the most devastating experience

of George Michael's life, was losing his lover.

Velez-Mitchell: By his own account

of smoking 25 spliffs of cannabis a day,

which is a massive amount,

and obviously, that has to take a toll.

That's addictive behavior,

and the thing about addiction is that it's progressive.

Telling: He grieved for three years before he really,

you know, could come back and make music again,

and when he did, he came out with "Jesus To a Child,"

which was dedicated to Anselmo.

♪ And heaven stole ♪

♪ You smiled at me like Jesus to a child ♪

George was still grieving the loss of Anselmo Feleppa,

and then his mother got sick,

and this was another devastating blow.

Halperin: He was so close to Lesley,

and she was the person who really, in the family,

encouraged him to become a singer.

Now, all of a sudden, he was embroiled in helping his mother

to fight her cancer.

Not only did she have cancer, she died three months later.

Halperin: He really was an emotional wreck

and was in a manic state.

I lost my mother, and, as has been fairly well documented,

I lost my first partner.

I was afraid, for the first time,

that I was really scarred by the things that had happened to me.

I was scared that he was gonna --

I was scared.

He needed to be watched.

Moret: Imagine an international superstar

arrested in a public park men's room.

People started questioning, "What's going on here?"

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

His album "Faith" sold more than 20 million copies worldwide,

and George Michael had eight number one songs

on the Billboard Hot 100.

He was now a superstar,

topping Madonna and Michael Jackson on the charts.

But his personal life was about to spiral out of control.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Michael: My life should not turn into a week-long debate

when the world is absolutely going crazy.

Are we really gonna waste news space on my sex life?

Velez-Mitchell: He had come out to his parents

after Anselmo Feleppa died.

He was open with his circle of friends.

What George Michael hadn't done was gone on television

and told the whole world, "I'm gay."

Napier-Bell: For a week, George lay and sunbathed

in a notorious gay pickup area park in L.A.

where there is also a public bathroom.

He was photographed by several photographers

who spotted who he was.

He was trying to create a situation where he was forced

to come out rather than just managing to deal with it.

And well, finally that situation occurred

when he went to the toilet and met a policeman.

Telling: That police officer lured him into the bathroom

under the guise of maybe hooking up,

and when George exposed himself, that's when the cops swarmed in.

Kreins: Beverly Hills police officers

arrested the singer known as George Michaels.

Mr. Michaels was arrested

for a violation of 647a of the penal code,

engaging in a lewd act.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

George Michael's arrest, you know, for, you know,

cruising in a men's room in Los Angeles in 1998,

I mean, that was a key moment.

It was a global scandal.

Moret: People started questioning,

"What's going on here?

George Michael, is he gay?

Is he reckless? Is he both?

Is he crazy?"

And then, three days later, three days after this arrest,

we got the interview with George Michael at CNN.

Moret: You were actually taken into custody

at a park in Beverly Hills.

Yes, exactly, yeah.

You were alone. Yeah, I was alone.

He was so nervous

that I actually stopped the interview.

You think to yourself, all George Michael really wanted

was some compassion and some understanding,

maybe some respect.

Your sexuality has been the focus

of tremendous attention.

Yeah.

I spent the first half of my career

being accused of being gay

when I hadn't had anything like a gay relationship,

and in fact, I was 27 before that happened to me,

so I spent my years growing up being told

what my sexuality was really,

you know, which is kind -- kind of confusing.

And then by the time

I had kind of worked out what it was,

and I stopped having relationships with women,

I was just so indignant of the way

I'd been treated until then, I was just thought,

"Well, I'll just hold on to this.

I don't think they need to know.

I don't think I should have to tell them."

But, you know, this is as good a time as any.

"I think he just told me he's gay.

Did he just tell me he's gay?"

So in unambiguous terms,

what is it that you want to say?

I want to say that I have no problem with people

knowing that I have a --

I'm in a relationship with a man right now.

I have not been in a relationship with a woman

for almost 10 years.

George, why do you feel compelled to open up

a very private part of your life and make it so public?

I feel stupid, and I feel reckless and weak

for having allowed my sexuality to be exposed this way,

but I don't feel any shame whatsoever.

You could also see that it was real,

and he was telling the truth,

and he felt comfort in the truth.

I'd hoped for him that this was the beginning

of a wonderful chapter in his life,

but it didn't turn out that way.

Napier-Bell: We all heard about how many drugs he was doing

and how unhappy he was from time to time.

Velez-Mitchell: There's this time period,

compressed time period,

where he does seem to be engaging

in very self-destructive behavior.

Telling: In the mid-2000s,

George was arrested several times

for driving under the influence.

On one occasion, he was asleep.

His car was parked, but he was still arrested for narcotics.

I was found to have drugs in the car.

It's something that I put my hands up for and said,

"It was stupid of me, right?"

I was not unfit to drive,

but it was stupid of me to get in the car.

Telling: And his arrests seemed to keep coming.

You know, they would be on the news seemingly every other year

he was arrested for doing something in his car.

Here we go again with George Michael.

He's been arrested on drug charges again.

Police found him in London, slumped over in his car.

When he was arrested, he was unconscious at the wheel.

I believe he was also in possession at that time

of the designer drug GHB, the so-called sex drug.

♪♪

It was very late at night because George had been out

during the day to the gay pride event,

whereby he crashed his car into the front

of the Snappy Snaps photographic store

in Hampstead High Street.

He was stoned out of his mind, and the reports reveal that,

and he shouldn't have been on the road.

Steele: And he was also taking a drug called amitriptyline,

which is a muscle relaxant,

and I believe it's severely disorientating.

He really didn't even know where he was or who he was.

Steele: George was sentenced to eight weeks in prison,

which the standard period for any prison sentence

in the U.K. is,

unless you misbehave, you'll be considered

for parole halfway through your sentence.

Reporter #5: Free after just four weeks behind bars

and now determined not to be a prisoner in his own home.

I just thought, "There's no one in the house.

My minders have gone home," and I just thought,

"If I'm gonna, you know -- I know, I've -- I'd like --

As much as I'd love to play cat and mouse with you all,

I can't be [bleep] bothered."

You know, I want to get out.

I want to go out, so if you'd take a few pictures, then...

-Thank you. -...I'd really appreciate it.

George Michael was a mess.

Halperin: People should have seen

the writing on the wall then.

They should have known that something really,

really was wrong.

Even then, he didn't change his habits.

He still turned to drinks and drugs

to help him cope through his depression.

This is a very sad man in a sad life,

seemingly desperately trying to feel better.

I have a career that I love.

I live in the most beautiful house I've ever seen.

I have a wonderful partner of 10 years.

Now, how many men on this planet,

given the job they want, the house they want, the partner

they want and the sex they want, have a right to complain?

[ Indistinct conversations ]

The big shadow that had fallen over George Michael's life

came at the height of the "Symphonica" tour.

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪ My baby don't care for shows ♪

Steele: He showed he could be the traditional entertainer.

Backed by the string section, heavily orchestrated,

which I believe is a career high point.

♪ Don't care for high-tone places ♪

But it was disrupted by an incident

which I think began in London

because he initially felt that he had the flu.

By the time he moved on to Vienna,

he suddenly reached the point of collapse.

And he gets pneumonia, and he almost dies,

and he's hospitalized for something like a month,

and they have to give him a tracheotomy

because he's literally on death's door.

Dr. Pinsky: George Michael had a severe pneumonia,

ended up in an ICU on a ventilator,

and for a man in his 40s

to develop that kind of pneumonia, that's unusual.

That's crazy.

Halperin: And that's the time my sources say

when he was battling heroin addiction.

Steele: When George came back to England

after suffering what he himself described

as a near-death experience,

he was visibly fragile.

He looks thinner. He looks older.

Halperin: He looked really, really frail.

It was the most frail version of George Michael

I had ever seen.

Steele: For all that, in his normal sentimental style,

he managed to wish all the assembled press

around his Highgate home a very, very Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Reporter #6: He looked weak and unsteady,

but George Michael was appearing in front of the cameras

near his North London home today to speak about the illness

that he said had nearly ended his life.

I got streptococcal something.

It's a form of pneumonia,

and they spent three weeks keeping me alive, basically.

Reporter #6: He became breathless

but was clearly determined to say, "Thank you."

I've spent my -- the last 10 days since I woke up

literally thanking people for saving my life,

which is something I've never had to do before

and never want to do again.

Halperin: I think he got teary-eyed

was mainly because he felt he has one last shot at life,

and he felt remorse over a lot of the drug usage

and a lot of the incidents in the past.

I really, really, really, really,

from the bottom of my heart thank everybody

who sent messages, and everybody in that ICU unit

that made sure that I'm still here today.

Steele: Then there was a really bizarre incident in 2013,

which probably still defies any rational explanation.

Velez-Mitchell: He is being chauffeured in a Range Rover

and flies out of the car on a freeway,

and people have to literally swerve to avoid hitting him.

He is very badly injured.

And he's flown to a trauma unit,

and he's in the hospital for weeks.

His story is that the door was not properly closed,

and he tried to close it and open,

but for those who had been watching his life,

they suspected there might be something more to it.

People started to wonder how you could fall out

of a car moving at that speed,

and some questioned whether it was actually a suicide attempt.

♪♪

Velez-Mitchell: He gets to the point where, in 2015,

he knows he needs help,

and he goes to Zurich, Switzerland,

and reportedly checks into one of the premier,

most exclusive addiction clinics in the world.

Telling: There were rumors that he was going to rehab

for heroin addiction.

Halperin: Let's face it, George Michael,

he was a drug addict.

He was admitted to drug rehab on several occasions.

Initially, you've got his loyal press office saying that,

"Oh, yeah, he's still sort of

dealing with his marijuana addiction."

But 18 months in Switzerland,

I think there were more serious issues.

And for George Michael to go away to Switzerland for a year

and a half, that's very positive.

The fact that he spent a year or more anywhere,

that's all good.

♪♪

[ Telephone rings ]

My goodness, what's going on?

What happened to George Michael?

He's cold.

He seems to be beyond hope by that stage.

Hilton: He had been trying to revive him for nearly an hour.

Why did you wait that long?

That's very strange.

Halperin: I could understand waiting 15 or 20 minutes,

trying to revive him, but 1 hour is an excessive time.

Velez-Mitchell: Imagine the horror

of coming in on Christmas Day,

say hello, wake up your boyfriend,

get ready for a Christmas lunch,

and he's dead, and you're trying to resuscitate him desperately.

It's a nightmare.

Hilton: I don't know

if we really, really know what happened

in the last 12 hours of George Michael's life.

Hilton: In the months leading up to George Michael's death,

he had pretty much become a recluse.

He was mostly living in his country house.

He'd gained a lot of weight.

Halperin: And really did not want anybody to see him

in the state he was.

He was an emotional and physical wreck.

His appearance drastically changed in those final photos

that "The Mirror" released.

He seemed to be a completely different person.

It didn't look like the George Michael of the WHAM!

Or the "Faith" era that conquered the world.

His voice wasn't quite there, and that really depressed him.

He felt so depressive, so reclusive

and really didn't know who to trust.

[ Birds chirping ]

Steele: What happened on Christmas Day,

it seems incredible

that Fadi would be trying to revive him

and not phone the emergency services first.

which became a big bone of contention

as to whether paramedics could've done anything at all,

even if they'd been called an hour earlier.

Certainly the details suggest that in the words Fadi used,

"He's cold, he's gone,"

he seems to be beyond hope by that stage.

Telling: Nobody's completely sure what happened

between Fadi and George on Christmas Eve.

Fadi was very loyal to George,

and George was very loyal to Fadi,

but they would fight.

They were sort of on-again and off-again.

They partied together, so while they were good in some ways,

they were maybe not so good together in other ways.

Velez-Mitchell: Fadi Fawaz said he had been there that weekend,

according to a newspaper he had spoken to,

and he'd gone out on Christmas Eve,

and he got back, I guess, late and slept in his car.

First, the boyfriend, Fadi,

said he had spent the night with George.

Then he says, no, he slept in the car.

Why was he sleeping in the car on Christmas Eve?

There's a lot of questions that arise

during his last hours.

But ultimately, it seems he was interviewed by the police.

They found nothing suspicious in his account.

It probably was something as trivial as a lover's tiff.

There were tweets put out by his lover.

Reporter #7: We're now receiving statements

from some of the people who knew George Michael best,

including the man who was with him on the day he died.

His partner, Fadi Fawaz,

tweeted overnight in which he said this.

He said, "it's a Christmas I will never forget,

finding your partner dead peacefully

in bed first thing in the morning.

I will never stop missing you."

He also tweeted that George had wanted to die...

...and that this maybe was a suicide.

Halperin: Fadi's tweets shocked the world

when he said that George wanted to commit suicide.

That doesn't make sense.

Why would somebody who cares so much

about another person do that after they died?

Telling: George Michael's family was obviously

incredibly upset with Fadi Fawaz.

Hilton: Ultimately, he said his twitter was hacked.

Why would somebody hack his account and tweet that?

There's no evidence that his account got hacked.

♪♪

Lee: Everyone wanted to know why George Michael had died,

but it took some time for the coroner's report to come out.

The first one was inconclusive, so they had to do it again

to figure out what exactly happened.

Not sure why they took so long.

Two and a half months now since George Michael's death

in his home in Oxfordshire on Christmas Day,

the coroner now saying that he died of natural causes

relating to the heart and the liver.

The circumstances surrounding his death

and even the documentation on the death certificate,

it's all vague.

What it said on the coroner's report

is that he had a myocarditis,

which is an inflammation of the heart muscle

resulting in a cardiomyopathy,

meaning the cardiac muscle dilated

and became very weak and sick,

and that's ultimately what killed him, and a fatty liver.

Those aren't natural causes.

Those are medical illnesses related to drug addiction.

Interestingly enough, they didn't release

the toxicology report,

but they said, "This is not a suspicious death,

and basically, his heart gave out."

The fact that they didn't release the toxicology report,

some people jumped on that to say, "Whoo."

The findings in that report have never been made public.

They've been effectively suppressed,

so we don't now what substances

were in George's bloodstream when he died.

The coroner in England has not released the toxicology results,

but I feel pretty certain that it's going to be positive.

Just all the circumstances sound like somebody who was using.

Lee: Some fans will always want to know

George Michael's toxicology report to put to rest any doubt

they may have had about how George Michael had died.

And at some point, you forget about the tragedy

or the struggles of the artist, and you enjoy the music itself.

And ultimately, the music transcends the ages

and transcends the tragedy of the artist

and lives on and stands in its own right,

and I think George Michael's music

will stand in its own right for generations to come.

♪♪

Moret: When a celebrity puts it all on the line

like George Michael did,

I think he probably inspired a number of people

to be honest about their own lives.

I felt sad for what could have been.

DeCurtis: I think that this is somebody who left,

you know, a bunch of really great hits,

who made an impact on people's lives.

And I think that's how he'll be remembered.

Kahane: He was the most kindest,

most brilliantly talented artist,

friend, little brother...

that I've ever had.

I'm sad.

♪♪

Michael: You know, it's the old cliché.

You get everything you want or everything you think you want,

and then you suddenly realize that the gap

that you thought it would fill is still there.

George Michael finally found peace after a life

that left a lasting mark on the world.

With more than 115 million records sold,

he'll be remembered for his iconic sound,

both live and in studio.

His classic song "Last Christmas"

will always be a sad reminder to fans of his untimely end.

I, for one, love George Michael

and think of him every time I turn a different corner.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.

♪♪