Glitter Deportation No Longer All Thai'd Up

Pop star is denied entry to Hong Kong shortly after his deportation from Thailand; singer refuses to return to England

UPDATE: Call this strike two.

Fresh off his deportation from Thailand, Gary Glitter has once again been denied entry abroad, this time into Hong Kong.

Chinese authorities told the U.K. Foreign Office shortly after his Wednesday night arrival that Glitter, who has so far refused to return to his native England, was a persona non grata in the region and had been barred from entering Hong Kong.

"It is a matter for the Chinese authorities to decide what action they take now," a British official told the BBC.

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Gary Glitter's fear of flying has apparently flown away.

After an hourslong standoff in a Bangkok airport, which began with a brief layover for the recently sprung British glam rocker and included the feigning of a heart attack and a refusal to board a Britain-bound plane, Glitter has finally agreed to exit Thailand.

The glam rocker, who was released Tuesday from a Vietnam prison after serving three years on child-molestation charges, was expected to make just a brief pit stop in Bangkok before continuing back to his native England Wednesday. But after landing in Thailand, he announced he didn't plan on leaving.

Because officials declined to let him into the country—the head of Bangkok's immigration police said the singer "poses a threat to domestic morality"—Glitter was left with no choice but to be sequestered in the transit lounge at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport—until, that is, a host of medical maladies seemingly began to surface.

While in the airport, the 64-year-old, who was convicted in 2006 of committing "obscene acts" with two prepubescent girls, complained to officials of an earache and was brought to the airport clinic. The '80s star, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, later claimed he was having a heart attack.

"We are barring entry to Paul Francis Gadd and will be deporting him to his home country, England, unconditionally and even if he does not wish to board the plane," the Thai immigration police said in a statement.

"We are now waiting to return him to England as soon as possible."

Officials say Glitter has now agreed to fly out of Thailand tonight—after being threatened with further jail time in their notorious 40-to-a-room Immigration Detention Center. Although other countries are unlikely to grant the "Rock and Roll (Part 2)" purveyor entry in the wake of his negative publicity, it remains unclear whether England is in fact his final destination.

"I'm not going back to London," he told officials, per the London Times. "You can't make me. I've done my time. I'm a free man."

Glitter, who will be forced to register as a sex offender once he returns to the U.K., does not want to be treated like a pariah by his countrymen.

"After our last talk with him, he agreed to go to another country in Asia," Col. Voravat Amornvivat, spokesman for the immigration service, told the Daily Telegraph. "Thai Airways is making the arrangements now."

(Originally published on Aug. 20, 2008 at 8:28 a.m. PT)