Flashback Friday Takes You to George Michael’s Infamous Bathroom

April 19, 2024
HANK ORSO

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It was April 1998, and celebrated pop star George Michael was feeling a bit randy, baby, so he wandered across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel and into Will Rogers Park where he attempted to...relieve himself...in the public bathroom. He was caught by a cop who was there as part of a sweep of the park. According to the arresting officer, Michael was observed engaged in "a lewd act." According to him, it was clear that Michael knew he was being observed. Also according to police, Michael wasn't the target of the sweep, which they said was in response to several complaints about illicit activity in the area over the previous few weeks. The Los Angeles Times report of the incident said that the previous year, police had arrested 21 people for such acts and only 2 in Will Rogers Park.

Beau Butler and Romeo Davis in Show Hard courtesy of Raging Stallion.

Okay guys, let's get to what we really know. George Michael got horny and went to the public bathroom to find some fun and got caught manhandling his junk. He didn't stuff it down his pants when he heard someone come in because he was hoping whomever it was would join him. I'm imagining that when he turned around and saw a cop standing there, his heart leaped a bit as cop fantasies swirled in his head before his heart plummeted as he was being arrested. As he said at the time according to his BF at the time Kenny Goss: "Thank God my mother is not alive to see this.”

At the time, it was an open secret that Michael was gay, but coming out was still not an option. Outting celebs and public officials, though, was a blood sport. As reported in The Guardian in their review of the documentary George Michael: Outted, “We had a motto at Splash News,” says Kevin Smith, founder of the publication that broke the story of Michael’s arrest, “Your misfortune is our fortune.” The incident, of course, forced his hand. So Michael learned the benefit of staying in front of the tabloid press by owning his actions and turning the situation to his side. “We’re going out for dinner," his cousin Andros Georgiou remembers him saying a couple of nights after the arrest as helicopters still buzzed over his house. “He said: ‘Let’s just front this up. I’m not hiding.’"

Yer boy Hank here visited Michael's "cottage" on a visit to LA. Photo courtesy of Hank Orso.

He took "not hiding" to a new level, with one of the best F-You disco jams of all time. His song and tongue-in-cheek video for his single "Outside" was released in October of that same year, the lead single from his first greatest hits album Ladies and Gentlemen, the Very Best of George Michael. It reached #2 in the UK, #1 in several European countries, and #3 on the Billboard Dance chart. Nothing says "I'm owning this" like a video in which couples of various sexualities cavort in public places caught by helicopter cameras while Michael dances in a disco bathroom, dressed as a cop!

And the song is not without its emotional importance. As Michael said in a 2004 interview for Attitude magazine, "I felt that lightening the stigma around cruising was the most immediately beneficial thing I could do. I know for a fact that when I was 16, 17, when I started cruising, that watching the Outside video would have taken some of the weight off my shoulders."

If you're wondering about Marcelo Rodriguez, the arresting officer's response to the video, he sued for $10m saying the video mocked him. yeah, no duh! The case was dismissed, then reinstated, and then he lost when the court said he couldn't claim damages for emotional distress while he was acting as a public servant. So here's to you, George Michael, for turning public pain into gold.