George Michael Lived Life To The Fullest

On Sunday, 2016 robbed us off another living legend. According to the BBC, police arrived George Michael's house around lunchtime, and his publicist confirmed later Sunday that the ex-Wham! superstar had passed away. The attention paid to whom George Michael was dating at any given time was second only to the attention paid to his songs, which included "Careless Whisper," "Freedom," and "Last Christmas."

Sadly, Michael's sexuality was exposed against his will in 1998, when he was arrested as part of a sting operation; Michael was accused of "engaging in a lewd act" with another man in a bathroom. Following the incident, Michael freely admitted he was a gay man — he had believed himself to be bisexual for some years, he noted, prior to identifying as gay — and that he was in a relationship with businessperson Kenny Goss.

Michael is believed to have dated Goss for roughly 13 years, although it took years after the split for Michael to admit the two were no longer together. "Kenny and I haven’t been together for two and a half years," Michael said on stage in 2011. "I love him very much ... This man has brought me a lot of joy and pain."

Goss and Michael came close to a civil partnership in 2005, but ultimately delayed the ceremony. The two are not believed to have married.

Prior to dating Goss, Michael famously dated Brooke Shields. In her 2014 book There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me, Shields mentioned her relationship with Michael.

"I thought he was a remarkable, respectful and patient gentleman who was obviously aware of my hesitance regarding sex," she wrote, noting that she and Michael went on a few dates before Michael told her that the two needed to "take a break."

Before even Shields, Michael had fallen in love in 1991 with designer Anselmo Feleppa. Felappa discovered he had HIV, and Michael secretly nursed Felappa until his death in 1993. At the time, not even his family was aware Michael was gay. Following Felappa's death, Michael became depressed. Not long afterwards, his mother died. In 2005, he told The Guardian of that period:

I thought it was punishment because I turned round at the end of Faith and said, You know what? I’m going insane, and I know there’s another way to do this. I thought, is it because I wasn’t grateful enough for my talents? In terms of coming close to saying I don’t want to live, that would have been after my Mum died. I had this overwhelming feeling that the best was behind me.

In the years prior to his death, Michael was reportedly dating Fadi Fawaz. It's unclear how long he and Fawaz had been dating, nor if they were together at the time of Michael's death. The two had not been pictured together since mid-2015.