Boy George _320

Boy George has moved away from his chameleon past and is content with being less colourful these days, as Emma Pinch discovers

DRESSED down in a grey T-shirt and jeans, Boy George is make-up free and very slightly wheezy when he sparks up his first Marlboro after an early evening snooze.

In the dim light of his tour bus, the azure of his eyes, still heavy from sleep, is the only flash of colour on his face.

This is a markedly different Boy George from the brightly painted creature of the 80s, all bitchy bons mots and diva-ish tantrums.

He’s content to be less colourful.

It will soon be a year since he last touched drugs, and his tendency for melodrama has been dampened.

His band-mates are still getting used to it.

At a gig in the early hours of the morning, he missed the second verse of a song and shortly after, without much ado, retired to bed.

“For the whole night, everyone had been surmising why I’d gone to bed. My drummer asked if he’d put me off. I was just tired.

“It’s amazing how something so innocuous can set off this wave,” he reflects, a smidgen delightedly.

George, 47, believes his famed tantrums were a way of asserting control.

“When you become really, really famous, it’s almost like you lose control of your life,” he explains. “You don’t pack your suitcase, other people are getting your passport for you.

“When I was with Culture Club, it was mental. I’d gone from this kid living in a squat, eating fish and chips and living hand to mouth, to having everything I wanted all the time. You’re moving around on invisible casters.

“Even now I’m doing something tomorrow, but nobody’s told me about it.

“I might make a comment like ‘thanks for f------ telling me’ but it won’t be anywhere near as ridiculous as it was in the 80s – smash the whole bus up and leave the band.