Boy George: Singer, songwriter, theatre star, DJ, photographer, fashion designer, cultural icon.

From his days as a club face alongside Phillip Sallon, Marilyn and Steve Strange, through the years of global pop superstardom with Culture Club, his rebirth as a world-class DJ, as a leading light of musical theatre with the award-winning Taboo, a cutting edge photographer and a confrontational and acclaimed fashion designer, one of the many things you can say about George is: he's never stood still.

It's been one hell of a trip. A decade and a half ago, George was coming to terms with the fall-out from serious drug addiction, the failure of his relationship with Jon Moss and the collapse of Culture Club. For lesser men, this would have been the end but for George it became the start of a period of remarkable reinvention.

Told with George's trademark biting wit, brutal honesty and sparkling insight, this book reveals the whole story, reappraising his rise to stardom and all the madness that followed. He talks about his solo singing career, his intitiation into the dance music scene, and his role as the driving force behind theatrical sensation Taboo. George also discusses the achievement of the apparently impossible task of reuniting the famously fractious Culture Club.

It is only now, many years on from the glittering, glossy eighties, that George makes an insightful and often hilarious assessment of the impact of that extraordinary era.

Boy George has come far from those days of excess and addiction.

This is his story.

Boy George was brought up as one of six children of Irish parents in south-east London. In the 1980s, he rose to international fame as the lead singer, songwriter and driving force behind Culture Club, selling over 55 million records worldwide. After the collapse of the band, he became one of the leading figures in the dance music revolution. He was also the co-writer and occasional star of the hit West End, Broadway and touring show Taboo, which tells the story of the eighties club scene and garnered a clutch of Olivier and Tony awards.

Boy George continues to make music as a solo artist and a photographer of note. He is also the design vision behind the fashion label B-RUDE. Boy George currently lives in New York City.

Paul Gorman is a London-based writer. His books include: The Look:Adventures in Pop & Rock Fashion; the definitive history of the music press In Their Own Write; Goldie's autobiography Nine Lives and the story of