AP Photo/Sang TanOh, Boy. Jurors today were treated to a police interview with Boy George in which the "Karma Chameleon" purveyor admits that he locked up—but never threatened to kill—a male escort.
The 2007 recording was played at Snaresbrook Crown Court during the singer's trial on false-imprisonment charges, per the BBC.
The ex-Culture Club frontman was meeting Audun Carlsen at the entertainer's London flat for a second tryst. But the musician had become suspicious that his Internet mate had hacked into a computer and stolen naked photos, and the relationship took a much darker turn.
"I absolutely admit I had him in the handcuffs so he wouldn't go anywhere while I checked the computer," George, 47, told police. "I certainly wasn't going to kill him. That's hardly going to do my career any good, is it?"
While the singer—whose real name is George O'Dowd—denies the false-imprisonment charge, he says on the recording that Carlsen "struggled a bit" while he was cuffed to a wall fixture. "I didn't tell him the reason I was doing what I was doing. I said I just wanted to check something. He was saying, 'Let me go.' "
The Norwegian escort managed to escape his shackles. According to a doctor who attended to Carlsen afterward, there were five different injuries to the 29-year-old's face.
While the '80s icon swears he didn't really want to hurt Carlsen, he admitted to some consensual hitting on a previous occasion.
"You can't spank anyone if they don't want you to," he said. "Unless you want to get arrested."
It's a little late for that. The trial continues.