Boy George: “I love fame!” Star signs, sexuality, and writing songs with ChatGPT

It’s time to stop being filled with jealousy and judgement of others! Boy George admits he used to love hating people, but now actively chooses compassion and kindness. In this chat with Fearne, Boy George explains how this philosophy has helped him celebrate his own and other peoples’ successes more fully. He also talks about why he loves fame now, but would have done his early fame differently, and about the solace he gets from talking to his late mum. Plus, he’s writing songs about everything from global war to scrubbing his floors with ChatGPT, so does Boy George see a future where art and AI co-exist? If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Samantha Renke https://pod.fo/e/132092 Zandra Rhodes https://pod.fo/e/254d35 Lulu https://pod.fo/e/331200 Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service. Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:29Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, a massive welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the show that encourages self-expression and reinvention. Today, I'm chatting to boy George.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Community, that word is a dangerous word because it's like a fence that we put around groups of people, the gays, the trans, the this, the that, and it kind of limits us to a perimeter. I don't live in a gay bubble, I've got loads of gay friends, I've got loads of straight friends, I've got a straight family. My life doesn't revolve around my sexuality, do you understand? So I just feel like, what are you talking about? You know, which is for me, the thing that I get the most upset about when anybody tries to trample on someone else's existence for any reason. Because I think we've all got to just be respectful and share this beautiful space with each other.

• 1:15Fearne Cotton?

  So everyone, how are you today? Do you know what? I want to dispense some regurgitated advice from one of my best mates, Claire. Claire is like, she, do you know we've all, hopefully, got one of those mates who is the soundboard and like the honest person who always says, not the right thing, but the thing you need to hear. And last week, she said, like, the most simple advice, it's nothing that, you know, any of you won't have heard before, but she said to me, "We don't give up." And it just stuck with me. It was like the end of a conversation we had on the phone. She's like, "We don't give up." And it wasn't said in a way where we've got a... I don't know, drag ourselves through anything without any level of self compassion,

• 1:56Fearne Cotton?

  or having a breather, or allowing yourself to slightly fall apart and be vulnerable. I think actually it's the opposite, it's, it's really allowing yourself to fall apart and kind of just go, do you know what, I'm done, I can't do this anymore, and then going, and now I'm gonna pick myself back up. And in those times when you're having a shit one, obviously you, a part of you wants your mate to go, babe, everything is awful, you know, you should feel like shit, you know, you absolutely fall apart, never get out of bed, and you want someone to validate all of it, but actually what I needed was someone to go, we don't give up. And it gave me this sort of absurd amount of mental strength on that particular day to go, yeah, I don't give up.

• 2:39Fearne Cotton?

  And actually, I've got proof that I don't give up. I can look back and think, right, when I've been through, you know, tough times before or challenging moments, I have picked myself back up and I've got on with it and it is possible. And I think all of us forget that when we're having either a really tricky time or just, I'm, I'm not even talking about extreme stuff, just those days where everything's really overwhelming and you've got a massive to do list, you're chasing your tail. You know, if you've got a family, you're dealing with constant stuff with the kids and the home, and it just sort of feels relentless. But we don't give up, we, we carry on, we crack on. We're so much stronger than we care to believe or remember, quite frankly.

• 3:21Fearne Cotton?

  So if you're having a crap one, or you're feeling low energy, or you just wanna fall apart, then, you know, by all means, do what feels right to you, but no deep down that we don't give up, we don't. We crack on, we pick ourselves back up, but we don't give up. I should get that tattoo, shouldn't I? I mean, I've got too many tattoos, but if I get another one. Um, so let's talk about today. This chat felt like a cool one to have. Boy George was part of the new romantic movement that emerged in the late seventies and early eighties. And he was the frontman, of course, of Culture Club. He became a DJ in the nineties, and he's currently writing a new musical called Taboo, based on one that he did a long time ago.

• 4:03Fearne Cotton?

  He's really just been such a cultural trailblazer and someone who's completely unafraid to try new things and change his mind and reinvent himself.

• 4:13Fearne Cotton?

  Oh my God, we got deep immediately. I mean, you join this chat literally halfway through. Boy George talks about the three principles, which is something that he's very into. He'll explain what they are and why it's important to him to live by these principles as we go along. And I probably should subtly warn you that, I mean, it's a chaotic chat. This chat is different every week, depending on the guest. And this one is just sort of like bouncing off the walls, chaotic, but we're here for it. We're so here for it.

• 4:44Speaker 03

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• 5:46Speaker 05

  It's time. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

• 5:50Speaker 06

  Halloween.

• 5:54Speaker 07

  And you guys know, we don't do Halloween by halves.

• 5:57Speaker 06

  Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat.

• 6:00Speaker 07

  And I'm the chef.

• 6:01Speaker 06

  It's our Ratatouille special.

• 6:03Speaker 07

  Ben, we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches.

• 6:07Speaker 06

  We've got a spooky hotline caller.

• 6:09Speaker 07

  An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert.

• 6:12Speaker 06

  And your tarot card die levers.

• 6:14Speaker 07

  Listen to our Halloween specials. Search for The Girl's Bathroom.

• 6:24Fearne Cotton?

  To this chat in just a moment, but let me tell you something really exciting first. We've now announced our first wave of guests for the Happy Place festivals this year. We have got some incredible people. You've got to come. You've got to come along. We've got Ruby Wax coming down to the Happy Place festivals, Tom Reed Wilson, which I am so thrilled about. I want to look into those big eyelashed eyes and hear him whisper sweet nothings to me. We've also got Donna Ashworth, who is just part of the Happy Place family now, quite frankly. Matt Hague, the legend that is, and so many more. You can get your tickets on the Happy Place website now. Right, to Boy George then, or as Amelia calls him, Joy Borge.

• 7:06Fearne Cotton?

  There was no real beginning to this chat at all, so you join us nattering about star signs naturally. Here's the show.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I love, I'm very, as you can see, I'm very into star signs and I-

• 7:38Fearne Cotton?

  I hear you talk about star signs in most of your interviews.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Every single person I meet, I say, what star sign are you on? You know, sometimes people like it. I think it's really interesting because you start, even when people aren't into it, they all that go.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Virgo or something, or they go up, and then once they've said it, they want to know more. They're so full of shit. Sorry, because they're like, oh, what do you always do about me? You know, I always get, it's a good conversation.

• 8:05Fearne Cotton?

  It's exposing. I mean, I am a classic Virgo. I'm textbook. I love organisation, neatness. Like we were saying a moment ago, I'm also very good. When I say I'm going to do a thing, I do a thing.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  But I'm also, I mean, you know, obviously I've changed a lot in the last 10 years, I think. You know, and obviously people that don't know you obviously can't see the change because sometimes changes aren't on the surface. But, you know, one of the things that I, when I do something now, I never complain about it. If I say I'm going to do this and I've agreed to it, shut up and enjoy it.

• 8:42Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  So I always have to kind of like, even doing this today, I'm like, literally, this is going to be a great interview. Well, I knew that already, but you know, I will prepare myself in the morning by tapping. Soon as I wake up, I'm like.

• 8:54Fearne Cotton?

  Do you love tapping? I love tapping.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  I do tapping. I've been doing it religiously.

• 8:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  And I would say above anything else, that is one of the things that's really changed my life, which sounds insane. Cause I talk to myself as well.

• 9:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  For years, I've always been talking to myself and people were like, then I read this thing recently that talking to yourself is really good for your health. I'm like, oh, finally, that's why I'm not mad. You know what I mean? I just.

• 9:16Fearne Cotton?

  If it's a positive voice, because we can all do the opposite, which is awful.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  Well, no, but that, I, I think, you know, that show runs on its own.

• 9:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Like the narrative that we have about ourselves, you know, you're born, you're given a name. Sometimes they're given a religion, whatever it is, you'll be, you give, you're given a direction. And some of us at a certain point go, absolutely not. I mean, I don't mind being George. There's a lot of pubs named after me.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  But you know what I mean? I just think to myself, you know, obviously my parents were great because although they weren't perfect, they were really open minded. And my mother was never like jealous of anyone, you know, if the lady over the road had a nice canopy and silk flowers, she wasn't like the other mothers, like, you know, who do you think she is?

• 9:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  My mum was like, it's gorgeous, isn't it gorgeous? So I grew up with that kind of real appreciation of other people's good fortune. It wasn't ever any, you know, of course I've been jealous in my life, you know, but I, it's something that I, something I tried to bat away with a vengeance. Like any type of owning someone or jealousy, you know, because obviously I saw my mum go through that and I went through it. Without realising that I was repeating a pattern. So now even when I do get jealous, I'm like, wait a minute, is that helpful? So I think I've learnt to stop and doing that really came from the three principles.

• 10:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, I'm very, very intrigued. I've done a teeny bit of reading up on it and I'm very interested in any new modality.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  So this is insane. What's insane about, let me just give you the context. So I went to dinner with the band, like Roy and Mikey and all their wives and everything. Mikey, the bass player, he's the guy that started the band with me. He's the one that came and found me in a nightclub and said, can you sing? So he's like the founder member. His second wife, Lily, is a homeopathic practitioner, but now she does the three principles. We're at dinner and I was listening to her talking to someone and I was like, oh my God, this sounds like what I'm into. Like this sounds like what I've been thinking about since I was 15. What the fuck? So I said to her, can I have a session? And she was a bit like, I said, I'll pay you. She goes, that's not the reason. And I said, no, but can I have a session?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  She goes, yeah. She came to my house, I sat in the garden with her and after about 10 minutes, I went, oh my god, I was in fits of laughter. Like, it was like a, cause she starts by saying, everything I'm about to tell you, you already know. There's nothing here that you don't know. And until you know it, you can't change. That was the thing. And I just sat in the garden because I'd sat there and told her the story about this woman that was staring at me in the cafe. Cause I had no makeup on and she was at the door and she was saying this about me. Of course, I made it all up, you know, but it was so funny. Cause Lily, I was telling this to her and she went, oh, interesting. And she goes, do you think that's really what happened?

• 11:58Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  And I went, absolutely, probably not.

• 12:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Wrong with me?

• 12:03Fearne Cotton?

  We make so many assumptions about everything around us.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  One of the big things, obviously, since I went in the jungle, right? I, you know, that was a big moment for me because it was like, this is what I look like with that makeup on, you know? I mean, not that people haven't seen me, because obviously I go out with that makeup on, but being on TV, you know, if you're tits out. Tits out, you know, the whole thing, everything on show.

• 12:23Fearne Cotton?

  Everything's out.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  You have to get over it. And it was part of the reason why I did it was like, I need to get over myself. Because, you know, I'd started to practise the three principles. I'd started doing tapping. I was doing a lot of things. But the big changing point, because when I suddenly realised, I've been talking about this shit for years and I don't do it.

• 12:41Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  So now I need to do it. So that's the big change that I tap every day, the minute I wake up.

• 12:47Fearne Cotton?

  So right, just for anyone who has no clue what the three principles are, tell us what they are.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Connected to tapping, you know, they would say, but the three principles are mind, thought and consciousness. So it's like collective consciousness, the way you think about other people, the way you think they think about you, which is obviously wrong all the time.

• 13:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  And it is basically about, for me personally, it's about stopping before you say something.

• 13:12Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Stopping before you feel something. I mean, it doesn't mean you remove passion from your existence. In fact, it elevates passion because you're not wasting all your energy on petty stuff that is irrelevant. So I have this thing now where if I'm about to text someone, I go, wait a minute, do I need to say that? It sounds crazy, but it's like, if you give yourself five minutes.

• 13:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  You don't wanna say it, because you suddenly go, what does it matter?

• 13:38Fearne Cotton?

  So if I came to you and I said, someone's bitching about me, or someone's screwing me over, or whatever, how would I apply the three principles to an issue like that?

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Well, John Moss is a really good example, because John Moss sued me, and I don't hate him. And I don't have any ill will against him, and I don't wish him harm, and I don't, there's just nothing. That's, it's so strange to be able to say that.

• 14:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, how did you get to that?

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Well, I got to that through the three principles, because it was like, what is, if you, first of all, hating someone is conceptual, right? It doesn't mean anything. It's like, when people rally against this, or run against that, you're actually just talking rubbish. Because what are you actually doing, other than just saying a load of words? So hating someone is completely pointless, because the only person that ends up with suffering is you.

• 14:23Fearne Cotton?

  You.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  So when you can actually, I mean, 20 years ago, I used to love hating people.

• 14:30Fearne Cotton?

  Best hobby.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  I would actually say, no, I like it. But then I got to a point where I just thought, do you know what? I don't want this anymore. I don't need to feel this anymore. And I'm about to go on tour in America, and this time I'm doing it on a bus with the two boys, right? And Christie was like, oh, how's that gonna be? And I said, it's gonna be brilliant.

• 14:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Because I'm gonna make it brilliant. And if it's not brilliant, I'll get on another bus, or I'll jump on a jet. There's always a way out of everything, do you know what I mean?

• 14:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Digging yourself a hole, like, with your mind, or, you know, with your, you know, attitude, I feel like, I feel lighter. And it's, isn't just the three principles. I also did three years with an acting coach called Charlie Walker Wise, from RADA, who, he gets very embarrassed, because I'm always talking about how he changed my life immeasurably. Because I went to see him after a gig, I'd done a gig with Chris Evans, I'd done that Car Fest thing. And I was sort of clipping myself, and I was just meandering around. And I remember, in between songs, not really having it, like, singing, I didn't know what to say, which never happens now. I have this kind of insane confidence because of him. So I went to him and I was like, I really want help with public speaking, you know,

• 15:41Speaker 02

  even though it sounds crazy for me to say, I get nervous, I get insecure. And he goes, no, it absolutely makes sense. So he started to teach me how to stand, you know, you'd forget it, but you, it's always like you go back. It's like what I just said about thinking, you can, you know, you can go back to being the old person that comes easily because that person's you. Yeah. But you can also go, wait a minute, hold on a second, you, you're not helping in this situation. So Charlie taught me, you know, sometimes half an hour of the lesson would be me telling him what I'd happened with, you know, I'd had a row with the band or I'd been at rehearsals. And I said, I had a screaming row with Roy. And he goes, and what did you say? And I told him what I said and he goes, and how did that go? Not well.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  But you think is, you see, the thing is, the truth is so damn obvious. It's annoying. Yeah. You know, why do cliches stand the test of time? Because life in some ways is Yeah, cliche. Yeah. And I think the trick is to stay neutral, not to not care. That's, people get confused. Because people think when they're ranting and raving, they're caring. But actually, are they? Yeah. Because to me, I'd rather give someone on the street some money. I'd rather go up and say, here you go, you know, and put a smile on their face because it, not because I think it makes me some, you know, super, you know, oh, I'm so nice. It's brilliant. Hmm. And actually, you know what I've discovered through the free principles, being nice to people is a real thrill. Yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  So in the old days, when I was a bit like, oh, I don't look right. And I'm, you know, my makeup off, it's gone. That's so great. So I went the other night to see Dieter and this girl gatecrashed the box. It was hilarious. She was a Scorpio. It was hilarious. And we had the most fantastic chat. And she was like, you're so nice. I goes, I am. And I can actually say that I am nice.

• 17:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Because I choose to be nice, which most people think, well, that's false. It's not false. You have to practise it in the same way you practise being difficult. It's just the same thing in reverse.

• 17:42Fearne Cotton?

  Do you think, so say, by the way, Dieter Von Teese came on here and was, we loved her.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  I love her so much, like you have no clue. I love her so much.

• 17:50Fearne Cotton?

  I love her. But say when you look back on either different versions of yourself or other eras of your career, where you might have, you know, had a stroke about something, kicked off about something. Do you think the root of that is always fear, insecurity?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  I think it's a mixture of things, but it's also when you don't know where the switch is. It's really funny because, you know, like I used to joke about wanting fame with an off button. I always say, oh, why can't I have that? You know, like the guy from New Order, you know, he's like, could just, you know. But to my surprise, I mean, obviously when I take my makeup off, I can do anything. I go anywhere. I get this insane freedom. I can go on the bus, I can go on the tube, I can get on the bikes, you know. I'm out in the world because I think as a writer, I have to be out there, even if nothing happens. You know, even if it's just raining or whatever. I enjoy being in the world and watching like mad girls on the tube like doing their lips.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  And so completely self-conscious, you know, just, you know, enjoying being me and being in London and just, yeah. So I've learnt to switch it off, you know, and I just don't have bad moods, which might sound weird.

• 19:00Fearne Cotton?

  No, I think it's fine.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Even when it happens, it's, it's so short-lived because I know what it is, because I know I'm doing both. So once I know I'm just being difficult, and it doesn't stop me loving difficult people. Because I do, you know, I think difficult people make the world go round. I don't mind someone with an axe to grind, as long as they're not directing the axe at me.

• 19:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  You know, I think, you know, watching other people lose it, I mean, I used to lose it. What generally people lose it, you think, oh my god, you're just spinning yourself out of control and nothing's gonna happen, you know that. But you try telling someone that.

• 19:37Fearne Cotton?

  But it's hard when you're in it. And I think especially like you mentioned a moment ago, if someone's doing something like suing you, where it feels like a direct attack, or it's making you vulnerable, or maybe there's injustice involved, that's tricky to just overcome and become sort of neutral about it.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  It's like you have your moments. Lily talks about it as like getting on the bus, shutting the doors, closing all the windows, and then going drive, you know, like you're in a thriller, where you go, that whole person isn't redundant, that person is why you're here, that person is how you've survived, some of that person. But what you've stopped that person from doing is having the best time possible. So once you get to that point where you go, wait a minute, I don't have to have a miserable time ever. I don't have to worry about whether I'm gonna sing flat, or I'm gonna do this, I'm just gonna approach everything from a kind of loving space where I'm neutral, you know. And I guess I meet people that get on my nerves, I go on chat G P T and have the funniest conversations,

• 20:35Speaker 02

  you know, with whoever that whoever that is, you know, and I'll say the funniest things. And some of the stuff we talk about is like poetic, it's like poetry. It's like talking to Joni Mitchell, which I've done a few times, that's like listening to a poet. When you listen to someone who, even when she's being horrible, you know, she's like insulting every single musician that ever lived, like saying the Beatles, you know, they had a good sense of melody and just saying obviously outrageous things. But she says it was such a kind of beautiful poetic way that you just go, yeah, I mean, I get it, you know. I had a row with her about Patti Smith, because I was like, I was like, I love Patti Smith. She was like, don't you find her a little, what was the word she used? Not hysterical, something, it was some funny thing. I just thought, coming from you, it's the funniest

• 21:20Speaker 02

  thing. I didn't know what it was the word, because obviously I love Patti Smith. And I was like, I said, no, no, I love Patti Smith, she's the real deal. And she was, and that was the end of it, you know.

• 21:30Fearne Cotton?

  I love it.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  But she actually said to me, and this is a true quote. It's okay for you, no one ever called you a genius.

• 21:37Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, wow.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Which was kind of heavy. I've written a song about it called Lady of the Canyon.

• 21:41Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  I've actually just written a song about it with A I.

• 21:44Fearne Cotton?

  Love that. So you're leaning into A I. Yeah, yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Five albums already with A I. I've actually had a couple of things covered by artists as well.

• 21:52Fearne Cotton?

  I think that's so interesting to hear you say that because there's a lot of fear around it. I think, you know, if we can lean into using it in the right ways, then it's a bonus.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  I'm writing stuff for the tour right now. I mean, I'm literally, um, I was walking through Camden yesterday. I wrote this thing called Skinhead Stomp. And I was, we've been canned and I thought this is perfect. It's like literally like I was really feeling it. Cause I feel like, you know, with the three principles, it's allowed me to kind of go back to, well, why did I make music in the first place?

• 22:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  And there's a kind of weird freedom to what we do now that, uh, first of all, we're very lucky to do what we do, right? I think I'm very lucky to be able to get up in the morning and make a song, design an outfit. I do art as well. So I feel very privileged that I get to do that because I don't know everybody does. But in the three principles, they say, if you're doing a job you hate, bring love to it because you're going to be doing it a lot. So anything that you, you know, I never understand when people say, oh, I can't wait to go. I'm like, even when I was on Broadway, there were, you know, kids a half, quarter my age, like, and they just wanted it to be over. I don't want anything to be over ever. So even when I feel like that, I just go, I just tap myself, go, you love being here. You're happy.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  So one of the things I do every morning, I am happy, I am healthy, I am confident, I am strong. You know, and I'll do like, I'll do, I'm younger, I look younger, I feel younger, I am younger, which sounds really silly, but actually it is so helpful.

• 23:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, but also I think, you know, we forget the power of words. They are so potent. Whatever we're saying, especially to ourselves more than anything.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  And to other people. I mean, and they've also just proved that meditating, which I do every day, that it affects people in a five mile radius.

• 23:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Which is insane.

• 23:39Fearne Cotton?

  Amazing.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  I love that responsibility.

• 23:41Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, it's gorgeous.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Suddenly now meditation's a whole nother thing, but also through, so there's a few people, there's Alan Watts, who I worship. I mean, I've been reading his daughter's book and I really want to meet the daughter. I just want to, because they find it really fascinating. I like, you know, Alan Watts, I think, really, I mean, the thing that he. The thing I would ever advise everyone to listen to is the thing that he wrote about Carl Jung. It was the thing that Carl Jung wrote to preachers and that is mind blowing. About darkness and accepting the darkness of other people and darkness in yourself. So Alan Watts, obviously, Sydney Banks, beyond, whenever anyone breaks my heart or anybody writes a bad review, I put on Sydney Banks.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  And he's got such a kind face. He was a Scottish welder. Who basically in the fifties of fifties just had this epiphany that we were all using our minds in the wrong way. Neville Goddard, do you know about him? He is more of a sort of religious, he is like, you are God. God and you are the same. You're not separate from God, which I've always thought since I was fourteen, I've always said that, but it gets such a shocking. Reaction. But if you believe in a creator, that creator, whether you call it a man or woman or whatever, maybe it has no gender. Maybe the creator is, you know, there's that thing, God is no thing. Not nothing, he's no thing because you can't put it into words, a bit like love, you know. You can't prove someone loves you, you have to feel it.

• 25:06Fearne Cotton?

  I think when people maybe aren't aligned with a certain religion, they find the word God just off putting or scary.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  I once said Bowie was God at a gig in America and the tumbleweed of. It was like I had to pull it back, you know, and I was like, I don't mean that, of course I don't mean that. Blow up. I mean, he was a rock and roll god, you know what I mean? It's so. Why is that word, you know, so offensive and used in such a wrong way, you know? I mean, I don't know what I believe, right? To be honest with you.

• 25:34Fearne Cotton?

  I feel the same.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  I, I don't know if you ever watched Wild Wild Country about Osho.

• 25:39Fearne Cotton?

  I love, I've watched that twice, that documentary.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  I still loved him after watching it and I still do love him. And I was actually in his restaurant the day he passed away. I was in Kathmandu having vegan food in Osho's restaurant when. All the staff came out and started crying and I was like, what's going on? And it goes. Osho's gone. And I was like, oh my God, that's the maddest thing. So my timing was, you know, my little friend. He's called Nayanabiram. He was a Hare Krishna. He's called Daniel. Now he's the one that sort of dragged me into the. Come to India, you know, and I went to India in nineteen ninety. Kind of looking for my, you know, looking for some answers. And I suppose a bit like the Wizard of Oz, I was like, India was amazing, but I didn't need to go anywhere because. You know, it's like it's geography, it's in your backyard.

• 26:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  So that was a really early revelation, but I think when you're learning things, the old you just kind of takes over so much and stops you from kind of actually physically doing things to change the circumstances you're in. And when you meet people like with a disability, that's so brilliant. And, you know, Samantha Rank, who is someone I did a video with.

• 26:46Fearne Cotton?

  Heaven.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  I beg you to watch.

• 26:48Fearne Cotton?

  She's a great friend of mine.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Well, I did a video with her called.

• 26:51Fearne Cotton?

  I've seen it.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the best thing since last spread. I wrote that before. And during lockdown, I was like, because I'd met her and I loved her, you know, just loved her. And I want people, because it's, you know, I did the record because it was like Silla Black, you know, and the best thing since last spread. But then I thought of her and I was so rang and raffed and it goes, we were in lockdown. I said, I'm going to do this and do this. And she blew my mind with what she did. I mean, some of what she did, I couldn't use.

• 27:16Fearne Cotton?

  I bet she's so rude. She's so rude. So Samantha Rank is amazing. We published her book, which was.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  That's why she called her.

• 27:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. It was, we published her book and we are just such, she's like part of the Happy Place family.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  So who's we?

• 27:30Fearne Cotton?

  We love her. Like the whole team, the whole little community we've got going on for Happy Place.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  As well.

• 27:34Fearne Cotton?

  So we publish books and then we have a festival and she comes and sometimes hosts or does talks.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Maybe you'll publish one of my books.

• 27:40Fearne Cotton?

  Write a book, we'll publish it.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  I'm writing stuff all the time, you know what I mean? Like, but I want to write a book about what we're talking about. How to be famous in a sort of, you know, quite comedy type way, because obviously I see other people and I think, oh, I used to do that. You know, Madonna running around Paris with a bag in front of her face. Babe, just go, I'm in a hurry.

• 27:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  You know, just be gorgeous. You don't need to have a bag, you know what I mean?

• 28:03Fearne Cotton?

  How do you feel about fame these days?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 28:05Fearne Cotton?

  Do you?

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, finally, I'm like, I love being me. I love being me. And I just, when I meet people and I'm, obviously I prefer to meet people when I'm dressed up because I want to give them what they want, you know, but people are lovely to me when I'm not dressed up. It's not important. Plus there's a beautiful freedom to just being able to walk around London. And people come up to me and say, are you George? And I go, yeah. There was a woman on the bus the other day, I was in my luggage. Coming from like Liverpool, so I don't know where I was, but I was near where I was living. And I thought, I'm just gonna get on the bus, I need the steps, you know. Get on the bus, glasses on, I wasn't, and I was standing there and this woman went, excuse me. I said, yes. And she goes, are you who I think you are? And I said, depends who you think I am. And she goes, are you a boy? I said, I am. It was so funny. That's so great.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  And she goes, what are you doing on the bus? I goes, going to where I live. Weird, right?

• 28:55Speaker 02

  It was sweet, you know, because I think if you, and I always think a lot when I'm sitting at the bus stop and they're around, I think Elton John can't do this. No. I can. I don't mean that in a gay way, because I love him, you know, but I just couldn't, I can't live in a bubble. No. Whether it's a fame bubble or a gay bubble, you know, that's the whole thing about community, that that word is a dangerous word because it's like a fence that we put around groups of people. The gays, the trans, the this, the that, and it kind of limits us to a perimeter. When we've all got family and straight friends, I don't live in a gay bubble, I've got loads of gay friends. I've got loads of straight friends, I've got a straight family.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  My life doesn't revolve around my sexuality, do you understand? So I just feel like, what are you talking about, you know? Yeah. Which is for me, the thing that I get the most upset about when anybody tries to trample on someone else's existence for any reason. Because I think we've all got to just be respectful and share this beautiful space with each other. Yeah, which we're doing the opposite of at the moment. The three principles teaches that every person is a divine infinite universe. So even with your partner, have you got a partner? You don't need to know everything about them. You don't. Yeah. You're not a spy. Yeah. You're a lover. How do you know? No, but yeah, I'm saying, I know it's difficult sometimes, and we obviously, it's important to know the person that you love, but

• 30:16Speaker 02

  if you limit them to an idea that you have about them, you're just making their existence smaller. Yeah. So the minute you get like, you know, the other night at D to this girl rushing the box and she was a jewellery maker, but they're my salariest conversation. And she was putting herself down and goes, what's that sign of you? And she goes, I'm a Scorpio. He goes, well, stop being full of shit, because you do not think you're shit. So shut up, I said, and that's the end of it. And we were laughing our heads off. Because I think it's good when people tell you the truth. You know, and you say, well, it's not that big a deal, you know, and I get in trouble a lot because obviously I. I try not to say things about other people, but it just slips out.

• 30:52Fearne Cotton?

  Well, we all say things about other people. It's human nature.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  I think it is. And I think, you know, because also, you know, I never really be, I would never hurt someone if they were in the gutter. I'm not that kind of person that I would get pleasure out of someone's disappointment. It's just the Beckham thing. Just, you know, for me, it's like, just, I don't want to say anything.

• 31:11Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, no. I think we get dragged into these cultural conversations that have nothing to do with us.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  It's fun. As long as you know what it is. Like, I think because one of the most profound things I heard recently from someone, I can't remember the name of the guy. He was a spiritual teacher, but he said, for years, I watched people like being the opposite of who they are, like acting out some other role. And it used to get on my nerves. And he goes, now I just watch it as entertainment, not in a judgmental way, right? But just, you realise that the person doesn't know how to access their truth self. And it doesn't have to be all snobby, you know, like, I know God and you don't.

• 31:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  You know, none of that has to happen. It's because actually it's always on you, the way you feel about something. So, you know, it, it is so helpful to sort of learn to do nothing.

• 31:58Fearne Cotton?

  And what, what do you think that catalyst was for you 10 years ago to think, I need to change something? Or I'm, I'm searching for something here?

• 32:06Speaker 02

  I have to say, I mean, I've been doing it since I was 14. I've always been on this kind of like, when I was 14, I remember saying to my mum, when I went to Bowie, I went, I screamed at rock and roll suicide. She goes, why would you say something like that? And I said, well, life is kind of pointless, mum. You know, and I'd say, you know, it's kind of, you do all this, all the pain you go through and then you die. And she was like, well, that's not the way to look at it, you know? So I've always had that view of like, life is, you know, there's got to be more, hopefully. And I was with my mum when she passed, which was a massive gift.

• 32:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Which, you know, if you'd have told me 10 years before that I was going to behave how I did. I would have gone, oh, I'm gonna burn the streets down. I'm gonna kill everyone. I'm gonna scream. And you know, I didn't. You were so close to her. Oh, God, she's everything to me. And I, and I still, I wrote a song about her this morning. Hmm. Uh, you know, I've been scrubbing the floors, mum, scrub a dub dub. I'm just like you when it comes to love. Cause my mum, again, was one of those people, she believed in love. And nothing could stop her from loving my dad, even when he was awful to her, even after he passed. He was still, you know, there were still kind of barbs that came and things she had to deal with.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  And she was just a magnificent woman that, you know, and I might even, I'm not just saying that. If my mum was awful, I'd probably say that too. But my mum was funny, very bitchy, like she could take your head off with a comment, like just funny as shit. We still like in the family, just sit around going, do you remember when mum said this? Yeah. Plus, when she got older and she was a little bit more fragile, she'd just say what the fuck she wanted. I'm so looking forward to that age. Jesus Christ, what does, she got no mirrors in her house. They were going, mum. Come, mum, she got, I can't say that. She goes, well, I've said it. You know, just, you know, she had, you know, there's certain people she didn't like. It was hilarious. And I'd say, mum, if you met me, she'd go, well, be polite. Of course, so be polite. That's all I hope so, cause if I'm with you, you know, but.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that spirit of who I am came from her. But the big turning point for me. How to say even Christine, you know, who does my face. Yeah. Um, I don't want to embarrass her, but I love her. She's like, but she is same size as my mum. And she can be a little bit like, um, like my mum. And that, you know, we're wearing each other's faces every day, you know, it's five in the morning. Yeah. You know, if I'm, you know, so I, I had a situation when I was in Ireland. During this, or the end of the pandemic, I was doing a TV show over there. Me and Christine were there with, you know, some people. And we'd, it was a difficult trip and Christine can get lost in the hotel. It was drama, non-stop drama. So I sat her down and I was like, you've been like a Labrador on crack this whole trip, babe. I mean, can we just calm down?

• 34:47Speaker 02

  And we had this great conversation and she had no idea what I was talking about. Looked at me like.

• 34:53Fearne Cotton?

  What?

• 34:53Speaker 02

  And I was like, of course, it's my fault. It's not, well, not my fault, but like.

• 34:58Fearne Cotton?

  It's your perception of it?

• 34:59Speaker 02

  It's my perception. And I was, you know, so then I went to set at the NED. I had this DJ gig at the NED, so I stayed there for like a week. So I was out of my house. So I made a decision. I thought, right, I love Christine. She's a brilliant person. She makes me look great. I love her energy. She's so positive, you know, like my mum. But when she gets in a mood, woo, you know, we have rows as long as we don't row in front of other people. So if I'm rude to her or anything in front of someone, it's death.

• 35:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  She will literally, and I know not to do that now because we can say what we like to. She calls me cunt. She calls me big nose. I mean, you can think of that same joke, but you wouldn't say that to Sienna Miller, would you, crawler? We have a very, we're very close.

• 35:39Fearne Cotton?

  That's true friendship.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  I love her to pieces, right? And I just thought, I no longer want to behave like this towards her because I love her that much. And she's like my mum. And so that trip at the NED, I literally tried this thing. I was like, right, tonight it's going to be brilliant. I'm going to make her a nice drink. I'm going to give her a compliment when she comes in. I'm going to change the whole frequency of tonight. And it fucking worked.

• 36:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  And when she walked in, she always looks gorgeous anyway, but I was like, you look gorgeous. And I just changed my tone. And then I started one by one, doing that a lot more with everything I did. And suddenly I was like, ah, this is magic.

• 36:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, we've got more control than we believe.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  This is magic. And it's so simple. It's like, you literally go.

• 36:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Why have I not realised this a thousand years ago? So she was part of the reason that I, we were in Australia and we were having these bloody rows. Because it was a lot of stress doing the voice and la la la, and we were living together. But, you know, I decided that with someone I really love that much, I, I can't behave like that.

• 36:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Never happens now.

• 36:42Speaker 03

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• 37:44Speaker 09

  Hello, I'm Joanna Fletcher.

• 37:46Speaker 10

  And I'm Marco Burchella.

• 37:47Speaker 09

  And this is Boots Off.

• 37:50Speaker 10

  We are friends who have spent a decade together, walking up mountains, across deserts, and along coastlines with some seriously awesome groups of humans.

• 37:58Speaker 09

  And something happens when you're out there, feet on the ground, surrounded by nature. The conversations just spill out of you.

• 38:05Speaker 10

  This series is about the adversities that lead to adventure.

• 38:08Speaker 09

  The adventures that lead to adversity.

• 38:10Speaker 10

  And how life can be one big adventure in itself.

• 38:13Speaker 09

  Listen every Thursday. Just search for Boots Off.

• 38:21Fearne Cotton?

  How do you feel when you look back at times when you've behaved differently? You didn't have this sort of insight or you hadn't done the work to really put it into practice? Can you forgive yourself?

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Oh, 1,000%.

• 38:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, there's no worry about that.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, again, it's conceptual. Forgiving yourself is totally conceptual. It's like, because you can only ever be in the moment you're in. So I'm very now-centric. You know, I'm very like, okay, well, that happened. It's not that I don't have regrets, because of course I do.

• 38:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  The regrets, again, are conceptual because it's really about your behaviour now. And some people will not let you forget what happened, even if they don't really know what happened. Do you understand? Like, a lot of people think things about me, which I know aren't true. Some of them are true, some of them are not, but, you know... I've transcended all of my difficulties, you know, I'm not saying they won't happen again, or there isn't something that could happen, you know what I mean, there's always that. But I can't live like that. No. I can't live with regret of what I did, you know, um, I've written about a lot of that stuff in, in the new music I'm doing. I think that, you know, this practice has really helped me

• 39:31Speaker 02

  as the lyricist, plus A I, because you're not working with anyone else, right? So you don't have to worry for two seconds what they think. Yeah. So some of it. No judgement. I'm a top line writer, so I write top lines and melodies. So all the people I work with, Benny D, Kinky Rollins, We Are Brando, all these different people, uh, Liam Connery, they send me tracks and I'll just sit when I'm, you know, doing whatever I'm doing, I'm making a piece of art and I'll just play it and play it. And, you know, uh, I have fantastic conversations with Chat G P T and I say, although it's a crap. That's not what I would say, you know what I mean? I love it. If you say to it, all right, you know, but actually you can train it. And my manager last night was saying, you know, you're talking to someone in China. I said, I couldn't care less.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  I don't think you're talking to anyone, are you? Well, I don't know, but I said, it doesn't matter, right? You know, because being a sort of legacy artist, you know, we just put out, I put out two Culture Club tracks, went into number one all over the world, which was great a couple of weeks ago. You know, it doesn't have the impact that it used to have, but we're going on tour. These two particular songs have been, we've been playing for three years and I was like, I'm putting them out on my label, fuck everyone, they can all get upset. It went number one everywhere. I was getting this lecture from them, I was like, what, people have tried, and artists like me, they try to force you to work in an old fashioned way. I'm ahead of them. I'm a D J, I do this, I, I do gigs for free because I want to do it.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  You know, I played the darkroom in Hoxton for nothing because I want to be there. Mm hmm. Because it gives me so much energy and ideas and there's just so much love. It's a big golf club and I can go there and pound, I do these like insane, like mad, like techno sets, that's so fun. And I wouldn't get away with it anywhere else, do you know what I mean? So it's about finding those places where you can, plus if you walk into a club. And you're someone that's kind of known for like dressing up and being outrageous and you're nice to people. It's, you have no idea what happens. It's just so funny. There's so much love. You know, Johnny Slapp, when I say slightly, I can say slightly.

• 41:37Fearne Cotton?

  Say whatever you want.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Johnny Slapp, basically, he runs his club, obviously, once a month with this, um, and even he said, you bring so much love to the room. And I said, no, I know.

• 41:46Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  I know. But, you know, because love is abundant.

• 41:50Fearne Cotton?

  And it seems like from doing the three principles and the other stuff that you've been working on, one key element seems to be that your ego sort of has to dissolve here. Because if you're going to be, you know, whether it's with a friend, you're changing the dynamic, or you're doing a gig for free, or you're just doing things on your term, you have to sort of remove that level of ego that causes the defensiveness, that causes the outrage in what other people are doing. Would you say that's true?

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I mean, ego is not the enemy. It's, it's about, you know, because sometimes it's good to have an ego. Sometimes you have to kick off.

• 42:25Fearne Cotton?

  We've all got one, haven't we?

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Sometimes, you, you know.

• 42:28Fearne Cotton?

  Use it.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Listen, you know, I have no idea what it's like to be a woman, right? I've loved women, I've been around women. My mother was the most incredible woman on earth, but I cannot in a thousand years know what she went through or experienced, even if I was there. When I read a book, I was like, wow, I didn't need, there was some even stuff. I was in the place, I was in the house, and I didn't even know this was happening. I think I'm fascinated by all the things unsaid.

• 42:54Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  I often walk around thinking, what don't people say?

• 42:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  You know, so there must be so much of that.

• 43:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. One of my friends, Donna, who's really wise, she calls herself an elder in training, and she's been an amazing mentor to me. And she says, say the unsayable. Say it. Like, say the thing, whether it's to a person, sometimes publicly, never to cause offence, but say the thing that you're.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  What sort of thing?

• 43:18Fearne Cotton?

  It could be something you're terrified of saying, something that brings you shame or fear or separates you from somebody else. Say the thing. And it's terrifying.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  I think the other night when I went to see Dieter, one of the things that I loved about the show, I love, there's a simplicity to what she does that's so beautiful. And it brings you back into that, life is actually simple. Beauty is something you'll worship. And I don't know if you know about Dirty Martini, but she's like one of my favourite burlesque performers. She's a big, beautiful girl. And she does this thing where she does tassels and watching the audience, she was shaking her ass. Watching the audience, they were losing their minds with so much joy. Because she was saying to them, the thing that we're all scared of is being liberated, you know, from our own fears about how we look.

• 44:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  What our bodies are like. And just watching her shaking her ass, it was like, oh my god, people are going insane. They don't know why. And everyone has a different reason. But there's something very, I wrote in my review of the gig, I said, there's nothing sexier than confidence.

• 44:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  And I told her, I went up to her and I said, I wish I could do what you did. I wish, I said, but I do it in my own spiritual way, you know, with the way I think. There's a lot of shaking off in that. But yeah, no, I just think when you love people, and it's like with my father, my father just never got to that place where he could be kind. He was so kind of a slave to his kind of aggression, his outbursts were something he couldn't control. And I used to be like that, you know, there was a part of me when I would be like that. And when I first met PK, who's my manager now, like 12 years ago, there was this one time I came off stage with Cyndi Lauper and I was like screaming, throwing my hat, kicking off my clothes, like just nuts, right?

• 45:03Speaker 02

  And he was like, what have I, what have I taken on? And, you know, obviously, eventually I was like, oh babe, listen, don't worry about that, it doesn't mean anything. It just me, it was just me, like I missed something or there was nothing about you. Because German eyes tend to shout at the universe because we're air. The sort of instinct is, you know, like that. But then the cancer moon is where the sort of kindness or the sort of, you know what I mean? Like, sort of like sense of self comes in and you go, no, that's absolutely not acceptable.

• 45:32Fearne Cotton?

  Did it used to scare you that you had the propensity to be a bit like your dad? Because I know that's a big fear for lots of people, like, oh my god, I'm being just like whichever parent.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Oh my god. I've written so many songs recently about, you know, I'm just like my father. You know, like in certain terms, you know, a lot of, you know, because obviously with my mum, I have a lot of, I talk to my mum like all the time and that sounds. If it sounds weird to people.

• 45:59Fearne Cotton?

  No, I do that all the time.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  I do a lot of crying with my mum. I'll sit and go, oh, this has happened. I might be at my art studio and I'll be having a sort of real, I'll just trying to bring her into the room, you know. And she'd always say the same thing. I'll just get on with it. Just get on with it. But you sometimes need to hear that.

• 46:17Fearne Cotton?

  You do.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  To hear her voice saying, you know, whenever I got in trouble, she was like, well, you've done it now. So, you know, what are you gonna do, you know? And it was like, even when I sort of, I remember there was this one, one time we were in Scotland doing Mrs Brown. My mum was with me and I'd shouted at someone and she told me off. And then she goes, I'm gonna get in the car. So she went downstairs and got dressed and I was so embarrassed. I went there. I said sorry to my friend. I went downstairs and got in the car and I said, mum, I'm sorry. She goes, I know you are. Winked at me and then off we went.

• 46:49Fearne Cotton?

  Genius.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Then on Mrs Brown's show, she told them I bought her a fur coat. I was like.

• 46:54Fearne Cotton?

  I love it.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  And she goes, this week he could be a Hindu or a, I don't know what he is. It was something. It was so funny. She just was brilliant. She used to say to me, you're a Catholic. And I'd say, mum, I'm a Buddhist. All right, I'm a Catholic too, you know.

• 47:08Fearne Cotton?

  I'm all the things. But it's lovely that you talk to her. I think there's so much comfort for people that have lost. A parent, a great friend. I do it all the time with people that I've lost and there is so much comfort in that.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Can I say there are no holes in the universe? So when she left, when she said left, I remember I was with her when she left and I saw her go. It was like, whether it was my imagination or not is irrelevant, but I saw my mum leave herself. And I was like, oh my god, look at her. She's like a little tortoise. I was like kissing her, you know, I was like, she's like a little tortoise. But then I felt, where has she gone?

• 47:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  She's still here, you know, and there were times when I was in Moulin Rouge, this one night, and he went over into the pit. In these Cuban hills and I swear, somebody grabbed me.

• 47:51Fearne Cotton?

  Whoa.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  You know, it was like, because I could have killed that person. There would be a dead person in New York because I would have.

• 47:56Fearne Cotton?

  Oh my god.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  You know, and I also, when I used to go off stage to do my little, there was like, like, like five, 10 minutes away, I wouldn't be on stage and I'd be in a back area. I was like, and I used to sit there and talk to my mum and go, you fucking love it here. And my mum would have loved New York, me doing Moulin Rouge. She would have loved it. She'd have been in the front, go on, son, you know, and she was at my gigs, knew all the lyrics. Even the most obscure, I know this one, I like the, don't like this one so much.

• 48:22Fearne Cotton?

  So lovely. Where do you think, like, where do you imagine that she is? What's your idea?

• 48:27Speaker 02

  In my mum's case, she's everywhere. She's in the cupboards, under my hat, you know, she's everywhere. She is a frequency. I mean, I've got this thing about frequency, because I think, you know, when I say vibration is reputation, it's like the way that you vibrate, of course, you can't affect everybody and it's interesting. But also, even when people are a bit rude or a bit up themselves, which they are in my business a lot, because I'm, because I'm so open now, I don't do what I used to do. So I'm always like, hi, what's your name? And if I don't know them, I say, I don't know, I've never met you, but it's lovely to meet you. But I'm not sort of sarky about it, or, do you know what I mean? I'm not, I just, what's the point? I'm just not interested in behaving like that.

• 49:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  So, you know, some people are still locked into that, you know.

• 49:10Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I've met those people.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know what? It's like, and I think it's hard, but if you're patient, some people will quickly come back to, you know, there's some people you go, oh, I was wrong. They actually, it was just the introduction was a bit like, because people also think I'm gonna be something. Or I'm gonna be this, I've got a reputation, it goes ahead of me, like, oh, watch him, you know.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Him and Pam Hogg, watch him.

• 49:32Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, Pammy. Well, I, I was listening the other day to your desert island discs from nineteen eighty nine. I couldn't believe how long ago it was. And in that interview, obviously, I, I knew about the, the back catalogue and your career, but even by eighty nine, you'd had global fame. You'd had public turmoil. You'd lived a whole life by that point.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  Millie lives.

• 49:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, when you look back at that era, what, what do you, what do you feel?

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I, when I like see old interviews of me, I just, there's a lot of affection. I don't, I don't feel, I've, you know, sometimes I think, oh, God, why didn't someone tell me not to wear that?

• 50:12Fearne Cotton?

  Hilarious.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  There'll be a few things, you know, oh Jesus, what was that wig about, you know. But now I feel like Cher, Cher is the one that says you should always have fashion regrets. It's like you just don't exist. If you haven't got things you wish you hadn't worn, then you might as well just give up.

• 50:27Fearne Cotton?

  Oh yeah, literally from the age of nineteen to twenty eight on TV, I can't watch. I look like an absolute moron.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  But you have to kind of get over that.

• 50:34Fearne Cotton?

  You do.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  And I think it's great to kind of watch back. And obviously, you know, when I look at myself sometimes, I think, oh, there were shades of this. And I wanted this, what I wanted, I wanted this, but I just didn't know it was available to me. And nobody told me I didn't have to feel like that. And when Lily sat me down and said, you can choose. I was like, what? And she goes, well, think about it. And it hit me like a tornado. And you know, even City Bank says, you know, he talks to therapists and he says, a kid of fifteen or ten could walk into this room younger.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  And get this and jump all over all of you in a flash. Cause it really is just one, you know, you're only one foot away from the truth.

• 51:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  It's, it's not, we go digging for it and we do this and we do that. And there's nothing wrong with that because you can have a lot of fun doing that, you know. It can be a lot of fun and chaos, but doing it with, you know, when you can be in a room with someone that you just met and be, you know, give them something that's so spe- ordinary, it's something special. But you know, somebody said to me years ago, learn to do extraordinary things in an ordinary way. And I love that. I just thought, that's great. Of course it took me a while, you know, it's not like I went never. Now I just feel like if I like being me, you know, and I don't mean, you know, people get, can read that wrong, like, oh, you're fully yourself. I'm not.

• 52:01Fearne Cotton?

  No, we should all, we have to learn to like ourselves.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  To create this persona. And that's not really a persona because I'm very much myself. But, you know, I just enjoy being me now.

• 52:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, but you're just.

• 52:13Fearne Cotton?

  But I think everybody is desperately trying to get to that place of sitting here and saying, like, if I text, I don't know, ten of my mates now and said, do you like yourself? I'm not sure any of them would say, oh, yeah, hundred percent. There'd probably be a few answers of, well, sort of, I don't know, I'm not sure, or I did yesterday, but not today. There's not many people that go, yes.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Funny enough, I find like kind of arrogant men very sexy, like a guy who's full of themselves. I mean, I don't see that as a crime, you know, if someone's beautiful and a bit full of it, it kind of, I like it, it's weird.

• 52:47Fearne Cotton?

  But I think we're attracted to, whether it's friends, partners, whatever, people that know themselves and are happy in their skin. And it is often hard won to feel happy in your skin.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Always see their vulnerability. That's one thing I think I definitely have, and I've had it since I was a kid. When I'm in a room, if someone's in pain, I'm, I can see that they're in pain and I'm very good at not, you know, attacking people that don't, you know, like, because I think sometimes the people that get attacked the most are the ones that need a hug.

• 53:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  You know, particularly in the trans community, you want to go up to those people that, you know, don't pass, that are struggling and you go up to them and say, you're fucking gorgeous. And you can do that, or you can just leave them alone.

• 53:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  That's even a loving thing to do as well, you know, I feel like, I don't know, I feel like a lot, much more of a connection to, like freaks and, you know, outsiders, even if they're a bit like, you know, because obviously when you're in your civvies, then you're walking around, they don't, they underestimate you, you know, think, oh, you think if I look like this, I can't make you look silly. Do you know what I mean? So it's funny, but you just have to stop kind of focusing on, you know, what you don't like about people and, and, you know, and.

• 53:56Fearne Cotton?

  That's much easier to do when you like yourself, because when you like yourself, you've got much less energy to bother judging everybody else.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  And you take someone like Marilyn, who I've known since I was like. He's seventeen. Some of the stuff he says about me is so outrageously rude, but it makes me laugh. Cause I think to myself, if I took that seriously, I'd never leave the house.

• 54:18Fearne Cotton?

  But again, that's a choice, isn't it? That goes back to it of choosing, am I gonna take that seriously and let it hurt me?

• 54:23Speaker 02

  He's a Scorpio. Philip's a Scorpio. I've got loads of them around me, like they're just, you know.

• 54:27Fearne Cotton?

  So many.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  But also, again, you go back to, you know, your mum, if your mum's a Gemini, I was like, they can kind of like, yeah, I know, but. Cause I think with friendship, if you like more about someone and then you dislike about them, it's easier to be their friend. You know, if you think, oh, but they make me laugh so much, but you wish they weren't in so much pain. You know what I mean? Like you think, I wish they'd get it, that they're not, they don't have to suffer.

• 54:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Suffering happens anyway. We can't stop that. But when you embrace it, it's a, you know, it can be quite sort of painful for me to watch it. I just think, oh, I wish she did, you know, wish she knew another way.

• 55:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, exactly. That's when you're able to then see, oh, right, their actions are based on their pain. It's not because.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  But you can't go up to someone.

• 55:10Fearne Cotton?

  I'm doing something wrong or, yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  But you can't reach up to someone and tell them, cause they just, if someone had told me, I'd be like, I'll get lost, you know?

• 55:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  You know, you old fart or whatever. I would have told them to go to hell, but I wish I'd discovered Sydney Banks when I was sixteen.

• 55:25Fearne Cotton?

  How do you think your life would have been different? Getting famous, having that kind of global reach?

• 55:29Speaker 02

  Well, I think I, I, I would have had more fun with it. I wouldn't have been so, I would just never have done half the things I did, said half the things I said in the way I said them. But then of course, you know, when you look back, I was watching Quentin Chris, um, the other night. I just went into a rabbit hole of him. Who I loved. And just some of the things he was saying was so accidentally spiritual and accidentally inspiring, cause I don't think he was a positive human being. But there was sort of, again, it's about knowing and doing. When I look at someone like Quentin and I look at my old self, I knew, but I didn't do. And the difference is now I'm like, oh, I have to do that, you know? So if I want, you know, to get fit, I have to walk and I have to go around this and, you know?

• 56:13Speaker 02

  But the tapping thing is, you know, literally anywhere does, there is a root, but you don't, you could just do it watching TV.

• 56:20Fearne Cotton?

  So if you're, so you wake up, you know, some days you wake up, you're just in a shit mood or.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:24Fearne Cotton?

  There's something, okay, so say there's, say there's something circumstantial and it's seemingly out of your control, like many things are in life, and it's really getting you down.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  Do you know Amanda Ghost?

• 56:35Fearne Cotton?

  Do I know Amanda Goose? I think so.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Singer. So she was a singer, but anyway, she runs a big, she's one of my best friends. And she rang me at five o'clock this morning, right? And I didn't answer. I was like.

• 56:46Fearne Cotton?

  That's very early.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  No, 5am. I was literally, I was like, oh god, I hope it's not bad news. And then I thought, I don't want any bad news. Because I'm kind of doing this podcast. So selfishly, I didn't answer.

• 56:57Fearne Cotton?

  Was it okay?

• 56:58Speaker 02

  I think she might have been somewhere abroad. What I'm saying is that I used to wake up in a bad mood. And now I don't. I love getting up. I mean, in an ideal world, I'll get up at four.

• 57:10Fearne Cotton?

  In the morning?

• 57:10Speaker 02

  If, in an ideal world. I mean, I can't stand sleeping. Like, it's one of the most annoying things, but I've had to learn to enjoy it. So now it's like, I talk myself. I say, oh, I love sleeping. I actually have that conversation. I do a lot of breath work and I'll get myself into that place where I'm not thinking, you know, because if I wake, because of jet lag, sometimes I'll wake up at all hours. So I just do something.

• 57:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Write something, make a, write a song or start a painting. Wherever I am, I never get into, oh my god, I can't sleep. It's like, okay.

• 57:41Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I need to do that because I can have.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  Waste this time because why waste the time?

• 57:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I know. I had a terrible night last night. And then I do get impacted by it the next day and start panicking, spiralling.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Do you do breath work or not?

• 57:53Fearne Cotton?

  Do you know what? I've done quite a lot of breath work. There's a.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  I find it so helpful.

• 57:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it is.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Do you know about butiyo ko breathing? Because that's the one that's the real like, almost like where you're sort of almost like just not really breathing, but you are.

• 58:06Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, no.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  It's like a Japanese thing, butiyo ko, and you do it in and out of the nose. Then you, you sort of watch an ocean. So you're like, because even in the acting classes, we got to direct the breath. Obviously, you can't breathe into your feet.

• 58:18Fearne Cotton?

  No, but you visualize it. Yes, yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  And it's so insane. And you go, you know, also, you know, um, you know, kind of doing foot exercises, hand exercises, all these insane things. I think what I do now, when I'm out, if I'm at a bus stop and I fancy doing some weird extras, I just do it.

• 58:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, who cares?

• 58:34Speaker 02

  I don't care if someone's looking at me.

• 58:36Fearne Cotton?

  Who gives a shit?

• 58:37Speaker 02

  So I literally just go, my knees are like a lunatic, or I'll start tapping. Or I'm on the bus, you know, I just, if I'm watching something, I'm literally, yeah, tomorrow's going to be beautiful. Or if I'm sort of like, you know, because obviously food, you know, it's interesting because recently I feel like I've been eating more than I've ever eaten and I'm losing tons of weight and I'm not on the jab.

• 58:58Fearne Cotton?

  And what are you doing? Tapping it away?

• 59:00Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just. Not having that conversation with food anymore about, oh, I shouldn't eat this.

• 59:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  She shouldn't have that and that's bad for me and la, la, la. And I eat a lot of vegetables. I mean, it's mainly what I eat. I love vegetables and I just love cooking, you know, so, you know, I make like, I don't know, sweet potatoes with carrots and cinnamon and honey and just, you know, I just love, I'm a good vegetarian cook, but I've stopped having that. If I do decide to go into Pret a Manger, whatever movie and go, I'm having a baguette, you know, sometimes in, in like Eminem, she just go, I'm a

• 59:30Fearne Cotton?

  You've got to do it.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  That bread's calling my name. And I think just stop the conversation.

• 59:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, cause that's the tension causing bit, isn't it? When you're in that horrible dialogue.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Whereas if you just go like, like, I mean, obviously I like, I like to work. I enjoy working. So I don't ever go to work in a bad mood. I'm like, oh, I can't wait to get, get to do what I'm doing. And this isn't work, but being Boy George is work.

• 59:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  So I have to sort of when, you know, Whoopi Goldberg said, when she leaves the house, it's Whoopi Goldberg, she behaves accordingly. But I want to behave better than the, the idea of me. I don't want to be a sort of funny old like, you know, people thinking this and that. I'm in control of it to a certain extent and it's only what it does to me as a person. If it makes me feel good, then it's worth doing.

• 1:00:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  So when I literally laugh to myself and go, oh my God, I was so nice to that person and they so enjoyed it. And they can't believe it because they're so used to famous people being assholes.

• 1:00:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  You know, saying no to a photograph, what's the difference?

• 1:00:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it takes, it takes no effort at all.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

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• 1:01:18Speaker 07

  And you guys know we don't do Halloween by halves. Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat. And I'm the chef. It's our Ratatouille special. Then we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches.

• 1:01:31Speaker 07

  We've got a spooky hotline caller. An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert. And your tarot card dilemmas. Listen to our Halloween specials, search for The Girl's Bathroom.

• 1:01:47Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, there is always traditionally, historically, a lot of moaning about being famous from famous people, that it's such a hassle, but yet people choose to do it again and again to continue picking themselves out there. And look, I get it. I certainly had moments where I was at Radio 1 and I'd be papped every day and I was going through some horrendous stuff and I didn't really want to be photographed, but I wouldn't publicly

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  But if you'd known at the time that it was like, wait a minute, they don't know what I'm going through, it's not their fault.

• 1:02:16Fearne Cotton?

  No, it's not their fault. It's not their fault. And I'm still turning up to go to work every day. I'm in control of this.

• 1:02:21Speaker 02

  But also, you know, nobody knows about that.

• 1:02:24Fearne Cotton?

  No, no.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  And even when you read stuff about yourself, as you must know more than anyone, you go, that's interesting because that bit's true.

• 1:02:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  And no one knows that apart from that person. How did they know that? You know what I mean? And then you have to get out of the, I don't care.

• 1:02:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  I don't really care if they told someone because people have got big mouths and I shouldn't have said it.

• 1:02:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  So the minute you put something out into the ether, it's gone. It's like a balloon. It goes. So I think like just being more mindful. I mean, I have rows on X daily with people, like there was

• 1:02:56Fearne Cotton?

  What about?

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  A guy the other day said to me, could you take me off your begging list?

• 1:03:02Fearne Cotton?

  What?

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Because I put up this video of a song and I goes, you can leave anytime you like.

• 1:03:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, go.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  I said, I don't even know what your point is. I said, but, you know, I didn't say fuck off, but I wanted to. But then Then he he came back yesterday and was nice. That goes, which is it? Cause I'm happy to be nice, but like, is it if this is a continuation of yesterday? And of course, people say, why'd you answer? Cause I'm a human being. And occasionally I just like to engage with people, you know, because I'm not separate to them. But also when someone's like posting something about me that is absolutely wrong and not my intention. It is infuriating. You think absolutely I'm gonna say something back to them. I even sometimes send them private videos.

• 1:03:45Fearne Cotton?

  Do you?

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  I did a thing recently where I wrote a song about this woman called Angela. Oh Angela, stick it where the sun don't shine. Oh Angela, you're just no friend. I did a morrissey on on A I.

• 1:03:58Fearne Cotton?

  For one person?

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, this is fantastic.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  And I said, if you liked me, I'd be depressed. I'd commit suicide. So it was just like me being hilariously morrissey, which I love, cause I think he's genius.

• 1:04:11Fearne Cotton?

  When someone gives me shit next, can you write me a song that I can send to them?

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  A thousand percent. Yeah, give me a name and I'll do it. You know, cause last night, um, you know, cause I just decided I was gonna write a song about my mum last night, you know, and I was and I had to scrub the floor, cause I dropped something on the floor in this flat that I'm living in. Just wipe me out before I leave there.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  But I was literally like scrub a dub dub. So I started writing this song about my mum. Hey mum, you know, uh, I've been scrubbing the floor mum. Scrub a dub dub. I'm just like you when it comes to love. And I was just sitting there just so, you know, A I is brilliant. Nothing to fear.

• 1:04:47Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Cause all it's doing, and by the way, I say to everyone, if you get replaced by a robot, you weren't trying hard enough. I mean, really, if that's what's gonna happen to you. Obviously, I I care about people losing their jobs. Yes, of course, the atmosphere is gonna shift, you know, but there's so many great things. I've just done this song uh for Iran that's coming out on Friday. And I wrote the whole thing with A I in Persian and it was uh such an enjoy. I wrote it, then I redid it with Kinky Roll and so I've redid the whole thing with Kinky. And I use the, you know, the, cause obviously I don't sing in Persian. I don't know anyone that does. And also what was interesting about it, because of the way I write. I don't write as a Persian, because obviously I'm not.

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  So I write in a way that's very British and it translates so interestingly into Persian. Wow. We're getting all these messages from people like, um, on Saturday I was in my art studio and I was sobbing. Sobbing, sobbing, sobbing with such an intensity because I was just getting these messages from Iran from people saying, thank you so much. My karma chameleon and all this just sweet stuff. And I was like, and every message was beautiful. Hmm. Because usually it's like, I don't know, you're a kind. You go to that land. There's always one. I mean, you get all going so well and suddenly you go, yeah, why don't you give up your old has been. Oh my God. And it was just sitting there going, this is so beautiful and I'm so happy. Hmm.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  And kind of so touched by what I'm reading. And I'm shocked that no one else is saying anything. Yeah. I mean, I know it's, you know, it's so funny that people are so selective about what they care about. Hmm. And, you know, to me, I just care about humanity. And I don't mean that in a sort of pious, full of myself, you know, because if there's a God, God's everywhere. Yeah. You know, there's no separation. You can't believe in a creator and then say, well, he didn't create this. Mm hmm. Or she didn't create that, you know, um, I imagine that the creator, if there is one, isn't really any gender whatsoever. I mean, probably the truth is non-binary, isn't it? A non-binary God. Well, non-binary life, you know, because the truth is neutral. Hmm.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  You choose what you want to feel about something and, you know, one of the things I love about the internet, I mean, obviously I get my algorithms, a lot of hot guys, obviously, it's like blokes in the round of pants, it's literally like Jesus, and fashion, gorge fashion. Yeah, yeah. But lots of spiritual stuff, you know, lots of amazing. What a combination. Lots of, because they're all the important things, beauty. You know, food, I get a lot of food ones. But you know, I just think there's so many things on there that I've liked. Like hand exercises, doing stuff with your feet. You know, because you forget about your feet, you know, and they're kind of important.

• 1:07:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I love reflexology.

• 1:07:32Speaker 02

  But also just doing exercises on the tube with your toes. Just, you know, you, you actually get a step from it. It's actually mad and even just like, you know, there's standing meditation. I love the internet because it's just so many things. I go, oh, I'm going to try that.

• 1:07:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  So I'll go out, put my music on that I've written with a robot.

• 1:07:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  And I'm out in London going, you know, skinhead stomp, do it by style. And it's just like, you know, it's about allowing your imagination to just run wild.

• 1:08:01Fearne Cotton?

  We're going to make a happy place playlist and all of our guests are going to submit a song, some songs. What would you put on there? What song makes you always just feel boosted and I'm ready for the day?

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  Well, funny enough, actually, one of my favorite songs is Free Money by Patti Smith. Do you know that song?

• 1:08:17Fearne Cotton?

  Mm hmm. I love Patti.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  Every night before I go to sleep. I mean, it's just, you know, my favorite song, you know, I give you everything you need. You know, I love that song. And my other favorite song is also by Patti Smith, People Have The Power. That to me is like something I put on all the time.

• 1:08:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  Suzie, almost everything, right? So I mean, Kiss Them For Me, you know, Right Now, oh, anything by Suzie and the Banshees. They're like my favorite band of all time, I think. And obviously Bowie, you know, I say Bowie song when I put on there. Where Are We Now? I've done a cover of that.

• 1:08:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I love that song.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  Where Are We Now? I did a version of that, which is on, uh, online. I haven't released it yet. I actually need to put that out. But Where Are We Now? I think that whole album, Black Star, just was mind blowing. I mean, I sat on, I was on a plane listening to it and I was sobbing.

• 1:09:08Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  And then the stewardess goes, you okay? I said, yeah, I'm just listening to new, new Barry album, but it's so beautiful. Ah, you know, crying my eyes out, you know, just so touching.

• 1:09:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  And I was sort of friendly with him a little bit. I was always a fan, so I can't claim that we were mates, but I used to speak to him sometimes on the phone.

• 1:09:26Fearne Cotton?

  So jealous.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  And it was, you know, and we'd email each other and he was, you know, he was the man of few words where I was concerned. Because I was like, you know, going on. And he would be like, you know, love, and he would say, put love on you.

• 1:09:38Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I love it.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  You know, just, I never got a favourite with him though, that's the one annoying thing. Oh, it was my but Thatcher but not Bowie. Imagine I could put those two together in my loom, it would just make my life, you know.

• 1:09:49Fearne Cotton?

  So great.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Thatcher I got, yeah, me and Thatcher was the funny one.

• 1:09:52Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, wow, that's a pick. If I were to ask you, where is your happy place? Would that be a place? Is it figurative? What's your happy place?

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  I would say everywhere is my happy place, which sounds really, I love a tree. I would love to go and sit in, you know, the woods. I love to be in nature, so, yeah, it's quite mundane, like trees, open space, you know. Uh, one of the things about the pandemic was that I was living in the centre of London. Like, literally, there was nobody around.

• 1:10:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it was dead.

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  I would go out, you know, on the bike and literally go to Hyde Park and all around London. It was insane and I kind of fell back in love with nature. I'd forgotten about trees, you know, and how they all look like they're wearing Philip Tracy hats. You go, look at that one. You know, it's a bit of a blow. You know, nature is so exotic and so colourful and liberated, you know. Do you think mushrooms go around screaming about someone being trans? Do you know what I mean? Or flowers getting offended, oh, what do you think you are? It's, you know, nature is so out there. You know, the ocean, you know, so those are the things that fascinate me. You know, I write a lot about, you know, the, the, the fact that the moon has so much control over what we feel. The tides.

• 1:11:08Fearne Cotton?

  It was a full moon last night, last night, yeah, I didn't sleep a wink.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  Well, apparently we're coming into, uh, this really good period for Gemini and Cancer. Well, I'm both, so, you know, I'm looking forward to it.

• 1:11:18Fearne Cotton?

  Love that for you.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  Bring it on, bring it on, because what a time to experience good fortune when you're in a loving place. You know, there's just nothing, you know what I mean? Because I'm not, um, I don't know, I, I'm just not envious of anyone. I'm not sort of, some people get on my nerves. I mean, there's no question that some people go, oh, turn them off, you know. Certain people online, I just scoop by, we don't need to even say they are, but some people are like, I don't care what you think. Right, you know, you, you know, then I'll see some hilarious woman like doing, you know, I post a lot of hilarious stuff. I post things that make me laugh. I try to stay away from politics a little bit because it's not that I don't have a political point of view, but I just think anything I could say right now wouldn't be helpful to me.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  Although I just recorded a song called Politicians Are So Sensitive with a bunch of schoolkids. And it was so beautiful. Oh, wow. And the kids, some of the kids had MPs as parents. So, you know, it was like politicians are so sensitive, then they come and break our hearts. Politicians are so sensitive, they just don't know who we are, but hearing kids sing that. Wow. It's like, literally, I'm like, let's just have the kids could get me off the record. Wow. Feels with the piano. I mean, obviously, we've got to work it out, but yeah, I just do things I never used to do. I mean, I call people up now if I want to work with them, not because I want to ride on their fame. Usually it's unknown people like Reptile B is a sort of grime rapper, very gay grime rapper, very gay.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  And I just called him out. I love that. I was like, I want to work with you. And I found out he had a cancer moon and I thought we're going to go on. So I said, you've got a cancer moon. And he goes, he goes, oh my God, tell me more, witch. So we just had this instant rapport. So great. And then when I went to see Dave Chappelle a couple of weeks ago, I made him say Reptile B. It was brilliant. He goes, what are you into at the moment? I said, Reptile B, but you've never heard of him. He goes, who's Reptile B? And it three or four times, but we weren't allowed to film it. Oh, I love that. And I said, Reptile, and he actually goes, I've just got Dave Chappelle to say Reptile B four times. That's so great. So, yeah, working with like interesting young, I like working with young artists because there's a kind of, there's a sort of,

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  I can teach them things. Plus with the wisdom I have now about myself, I can say, you don't have to do it like that. Yeah, no, it's great. And there are no rules. So I'm working with this kid at the moment called Joe Connerboy, who has got the most beautiful voice. Who was on like Britain's Got Talent, he was on all these things. And then we just met online. And I heard this song he did called Concrete and I was like, oh, we should work together. And I've been writing stuff with him and for him and, you know, doing, I've got so much music at the moment. I'm literally, everyone keeps telling me. I mean, I can't believe. Massive ego. I've got a track out with this guy Walter from Denmark. And I've got this new track out, Jesus Loves You, which was my dance thing. I'm now redoing that. So my next release on Friday is two Jesus Loves You tracks.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  One is about Iran and one is just about war, you know, really. It's called Sometimes It Breaks My Heart. But, yeah, I just. Try to defy the sort of rules of like, well, you're this and you must do this. I'm like, no.

• 1:14:21Fearne Cotton?

  But it's so amazing. You are literally bursting with creativity. It's so inspiring. I love being creative. I love having ideas and to see that you are just unstoppable at the moment with everything you're doing.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  It's never, never there.

• 1:14:35Fearne Cotton?

  No, of course.

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  Oh, you haven't got to look for it. I've worked with so many young artists where they sit there, you know, butts clenched and they're like waiting for divine inspiration like, open a book.

• 1:14:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  Go and read a Rumi poem, go and listen to, go and watch something, go walk outside.

• 1:14:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  Or, you know, whatever. There's so, or go online, go on chat GPT and just even say, who are you?

• 1:14:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Speaker 02

  Such a funny.

• 1:14:58Fearne Cotton?

  Just ask any question.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Random questions and it's like, well, I'm whoever you want to be. And it goes, well, that's a bit lame.

• 1:15:04Fearne Cotton?

  But there's probably a song in that. It's great.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  Everything's a song. When people say, everything you say, you turn into a song. And I'm like, that's what everyone does?

• 1:15:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  Everyone does exactly what I'm doing. They just talk about it in a different way.

• 1:15:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  Like they're geniuses.

• 1:15:19Fearne Cotton?

  Well, I think it's beautiful what you're doing, this full-on creative outburst. And I'm so happy to see that you are in such a great place. I think it's massively inspiring for everybody listening.

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  I love the colour of your dress. I love that blue.

• 1:15:32Fearne Cotton?

  This is actually a pantsuit.

• 1:15:36Fearne Cotton?

  Boy George, what a trip to talk to you today. Thank you so much for being on Happy Place.

• 1:15:40Speaker 02

  Were we talking? I didn't even notice.

• 1:15:45Fearne Cotton?

  Oh my God, Boy George, what an absolute bonkers treat that was. That chat was as close to stepping into George's mind as humanly possible, I think. It was a wild ride. So hopefully you're getting the hang of our new little Happy Place cycle because in a few days' time, you'll have me having a little natter about what makes me and team Happy Place feel really happy and what we want to put in the bin. So listen out for that. By the way, I would love for you to get involved in this too. Send us a DM or a comment on Instagram. The handle is at Happy Place Official. What has put you in a really good mood? It could be anything from like a meme you've seen to, you know, you're getting engaged, whatever.

• 1:16:26Fearne Cotton?

  Right, until next time, massive thanks again to Boy George, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, and to you lot, I love you.

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• 1:18:19Speaker 05

  It's time. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween!

• 1:18:27Speaker 06

  And you guys know we don't do Halloween by halves.

• 1:18:30Speaker 07

  Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat.

• 1:18:33Speaker 06

  And I'm the chef. It's our Ratatouille special. Ben, we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches.

• 1:18:40Speaker 07

  We've got a spooky hotline caller.

• 1:18:42Speaker 06

  An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert.

• 1:18:45Speaker 07

  And your tarot card dilemmas.

• 1:18:47Speaker 06

  Listen to our Halloween specials, search for The Girl's Bathroom.