Erasure's Andy Bell on kissing Boy George on stage
Andy Bell, best known as an iconic figure of the LGBTQ+ scene in the 80s and one-half of Erasure, has just released his latest solo album Ten Crowns and is set to perform at Brighton Pride in August.
At 61 years old, the artist has been in the music industry for decades and carved an important path as one of the few openly gay music artists in the industry in the 80s.
In a powerful moment during the Brit Awards in February 1989, Andy was presented with an award on stage by Boy George and took this opportunity to kiss him on the lips.
'It was funny because I'm not sure how much kissing I'd seen – I love doing it, I love being out, and I love kissing on people and with my partner and stuff – But yeah, because we weren't really exposed to it very much.
'I just remember, when George came on the stage, I was really pleased that it was him. Just as he passed me the award, I just said to him really quickly, 'kiss me', and he did, and it just happened like that.
'So it was, I think, probably one of the only moments ever where I've done something on purpose,' he said.
He explained that the interaction wasn't a pre-discussed or planned moment, but something he thought would be a bold move in the moment.
With thousands of members from all over the world, our vibrant LGBTQ+ WhatsApp channel is a hub for all the latest news and important issues that face the LGBTQ+ community.
Simply click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! Don't forget to turn on notifications!
'Because we never ever planned press stunts or anything like that at all.' He said, adding: 'It was a kind of blink and you miss it moment.'
The smooch took place the same year that the first on-screen kiss aired to the British public in an episode of EastEnders between characters Colin Russell and his partner Barry Clark.
As one of the few openly gay pop stars in the 80s, Andy once told The Guardian that he felt the need to be 'outrageous' at the time, which meant outrageous outfits and outrageous comments, which he said was a 'defence mechanism'.
'I just started developing this character, you know, out of necessity, really, to this larger than life person, just to deal with hecklers and stuff like that.
'I learned most of my stuff from drag queens, you know, from going and seeing drag queens in the pubs and so, yeah, this character is built over the years.'
He said that he made his character a 'screamer' and it meant he didn't have to announce his sexuality in every interview.
'In the beginning, especially playing in North America and places you kind of it gets boring saying you're gay all the time, all the time, you know, in an interview.
'So I just thought I'd, I'd make, I'd have this character on stage. It was like a screamer, just so there were no questions asked.
'I know that it's a bit of a cliche now when I look back, but I just didn't want there to be any compromises or anything.
'For me, it felt like, almost like it was a defence mechanism, but like a shield almost,' he said.
Andy's new album features a track titled Heart's A Liar with Blondie star Debbie Harry.
'I just feel like that. I feel like I've not struck gold, but kind of been blessed by music royalty,' he said of working with the iconic singer.
'To me, that's better than anybody in the whole of the music industry. You know, she's the top dog, she really is.'
He added that in the music industry, relationships are often transactional and somewhat fake, which wasn't the case with Debbie.
'I know they've had really tough times as well, Blondie. So has Erasure, people all have time in the wilderness, and I think just for someone to reach your hand and say, 'Oh, come on, you know, I'll help you.' That's basically what it is.
'You just don't get that either in the music industry. It's all these back-handed compliments and handshakes, and everything's for commercial gain. Nothing is sincere anymore.'
Andy has worked alongside his Erasure other half, Vince Clarke, for decades, taking time to do his own solo work, but always coming together to create music as Erasure.
'When we meet, it's kind of like, it is like, like an ex-lover, and you're meeting up again,' he says, revealing that he's only managed to see him twice this year.
'You're kind of defining your roles, or coming back together, and because it's very raw when you're writing together – I mean, I feel almost sorry for people that have been couples like Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. You know how that must be really tough when you're a real couple.
'But just because we haven't slept with each other doesn't mean that you don't have intimate moments.'
He explains that when they get back together, after a little initial awkwardness, they are back into the swing.
'Once you've established that trust, it's there forever,' he says.
The singer is set to perform at Brighton Pride in August and emphasised that celebrating the LGBTQ+ community is just as important today as it has always been. More Trending
'As long as we're a target, as long as we're in a position where all of a sudden you're being scapegoated by whichever political party, then we're obviously not safe.
'Until everything is just as it should be, normalised and we're all treated the same and we're all treated fairly, we're still working towards something.'
Andy Bell's album Ten Crowns is out now, and he is set to perform at Brighton Pride supported by Hayu, on August 3 .
Got a story?
If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
MORE: I attended the UK's biggest true crime convention — it wasn't what I expected
MORE: 'I was the only out lesbian MP for 13 years – here's how Parliament has changed'
MORE: I told my date my sexual preferences and was immediately ghosted
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
2 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Tim Minchin: 'Mum's death was gutting as she'll never see my kids grow up'
Comedian and singer-songwriter Tim Minchin opens up about his family, the loss of his beloved mum Ros to blood cancer, and why he never reads his own reviews It's been 20 years since Australian comedian Tim Minchin first registered on British radars with his award-winning Edinburgh show Darkside, a mix of comedy songs, political jokes and poignant, witty reflections on his own life, all played barefoot at his piano. Since then the Northampton-born musician has written and starred in the Netflix drama Upright, released six albums of his work and created the critically acclaimed musical Matilda - inspired by the Roald Dahl book - which, in 2025, celebrates 15 years of West End success. It has won seven Olivier awards and four Tonys and is about to start a second UK and Ireland tour with a new cast. Now about to turn 50, and having re-recorded an album of his old songs, Tim is in a reflective mood. While he is tired after finishing a 33-gig UK tour this summer, he feels happier than ever getting to do what he loves. But the last two years have had challenges. Tim lost his mum Ros in 2023 after a three-year battle with blood cancer. He performed in Sydney hours after she died, having spent as much time with her as he could in her final months. "I'm a deeply pragmatic person, I'm quite emotionally intelligent and I'm a reasonable observer of both my own and other people's emotions, so your mum dies, and that's like one of the rules," he says. "If you're lucky, she goes before you. If she dies at 74 like mine, we're lucky to have had her that long. "But sometimes I feel like she's missing all of this, as she would have loved to see her grandkids getting older. " He laughingly describes his children, Violet and Caspar as "pretty different and cats, my kids". The teenagers, who he shares with childhood sweetheart Sarah, feature in some of his songs - Lullaby, which he wrote when Violet was a sleep-dodging baby, carries the immortal line, 'When is rocking rocking, and when is it shaking?' "We really struggled with her. She liked being rocked, but it was like, 'is this alright? I'm throwing this kid around,'" he laughs. Family is so important to Tim, who lives with wife Sarah in Sydney when he's not travelling. His dad David came to the UK for Tim's recent tour and the Minchins have a novel way of keeping in touch: by reporting their daily exercise to each other. "Although Dad's been grieving, he's also been like, well, I don't have long, I'd better travel," says Tim. "We're very close, my family, my three siblings and me. We are all talking, all the time." When he's not writing new lyrics or recording - his new album TimMinchinTimeMachine is a look back at 20 years' worth of his favourite songs - Tim stays off social media and 24-hour news. "I was on Twitter in the early days, and I think once some troll said something, and I slapped them down," he recalls. "And all my fans piled on this person and I just went, 'I will never do that again'. "I can't believe that in 2025, people still set their dogs on each other. After Trump and Brexit happened, I got out of Twitter, I just went, 'this is horrible, toxic'. Now I'm off everything. I had to go cold turkey, I was completely addicted." In his free time, Tim reads books and checks the news every three days or so to keep away from the dreaded doomscrolling. "It's this perpetual humankind panic, as if none of this stuff's ever happened before. I can't be happy and have all that stuff [in my head]. Now I'm trying to teach my kids the same thing," he says. The same mentality extends to his critics - he refuses to read reviews of shows, knowing a single criticism would make him spiral. "I'm just too fragile. And I'm not ashamed of that - you have to be, to do what I do. You have to be open-hearted," he says. "I have confidence in my work now. A long time ago I thought, 'who do I listen to? I'm not like anyone else.' [Anything I read about myself ] is in my head the next day when I go on stage. And that's just no good to me, because to do what I do requires a massive leap, almost like a suspension of disbelief. "The person that I am when I walk on stage is a person completely confident, to have up to 7,000 people hanging on my every word," he says. "And that is not who I always feel like. Sometimes it feels impossible."
Scotsman
an hour ago
- Scotsman
Edinburgh International Book Festival round-up: Paul French Mark Watson
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Paul French's 2012 book Midnight in Peking, effectively solving a young British girl's gruesome murder there in 1937, was true crime at its most spellbinding. I remember the way he talked about it - in pithy tabloidese, each sentence like a movie pitch. He knows China backwards, having made his money as a marketing expert predicting the country's future while all the time fascinated by its wild, pre-communist, 20th century past. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mark Watson Which is where Wallis Simpson comes in. In French's new book, Her Lotus Year, she arrives in Shanghai because she's heard she'll be able to get a divorce there from her abusive US Navy pilot husband Win ('He's America's first Top Gun. Taller and more handsome than Tom Cruise but with worse planes'). 'Shanghai back then was the maddest place in the world,' said French. 'Whatever you can imagine, times it by ten.' It's a city of warlords, brothels, drugs, famine, and jazz. We know about its degeneracy, because that's what the so-called China Dossier - the one that accused Wallis of sexual practices so outré that when she read it the Queen Mother is reputed to have required smelling salts - spelled out. Yet all that is all fake news, says French. Wallis might have been good at holding her drink, but that's about it. She's an abused woman fleeing a violent husband. She has an independent streak, and finds happiness in Peking, where she gets a sense of style, is taken in by rich friends and becomes more confidently cosmopolitan. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'The subtitle of your book is 'China, The Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson',' said journalist Isabel Hilton (another China expert), chairing the event. 'A big claim. Are you sure you can stand it up?' Sure he can. And so to the making of another grande dame forced to flee an abusive husband. Dan Gunn has spent the last seven years editing the first volume of Muriel Spark's letters, from 1944 to 1963, and is hard at work on the second, which takes the story up to her death in 2006. But it's the first volume, he emphasised, where Spark changes the most: from unknown poet to acclaimed writer, where she has the only true love affair in her life (though it ended in betrayal and bitterness), where she suffered real hardship, a miscarriage and attempted rape, had a serious breakdown and two conversions (first to Anglicanism, then Catholicism). Asked why the project had taken so long, Gunn pointed out reasonably enough that working with 40 different archives (half public, half private) took time and, considering that editing Samuel Beckett's letters took him a quarter of a century, 'deciphering the most difficult handwriting in the 20th century in five languages', the Spark letters were a comparative doddle. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The hour sped by for two main reasons. The first was the way in which Gunn communicated the joys of following a trail of writer's letters rather than writing a biography. Instead of telling a linear story arcing towards success, he said, the letters make clear how contingent the whole process is: how much depends on the luck of finding the right publisher at the right time and having supportive patrons and friends – how easily, in other words, everything could go wrong. The second reason was Spark herself, and the delight in seeing her try out her writing wings. I went along later to comedian Mark Watson's sparsely-attended event later on, hoping for laughs, but not for a second did he come close to just one letter Muriel Spark wrote (20 January 1955: look it up) in which she describes a talkative neighbour with a verve only the truly comic writers - Victoria Wood, say, or Alan Bennett - could match. David Robinson
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
I know who Myleene Klass's cheating mystery star is. It's jaw-dropping - it's NOT the names bandied around and NOT a singer. My snitch told me everything... no wonder lawyers have been called in: KATIE HIND
It's the biggest showbiz whodunnit since the nation had to guess who shot EastEnders character Phil Mitchell back in 2001. After Myleene Klass revealed in lurid detail last month how she caught her ex-husband Graham Quinn cheating on her with another celebrity, everyone has been busy trying to guess who the famous woman could be.
