Boy George explains why he hung up during ‘dark age’ radio interview live on air

Boy George has explained why he abruptly hung up on Brisbane breakfast radio host, Neil Breen. 

On Friday morning, the 59-year-old Voice coach took offence to Neil’s glowing introduction about his 1980s pop career and prematurely ended the interview. 

And the singer has now explained his actions, tweeing: ‘Apparently I still need to be reintroduced to the Australian public. I must get a bigger hat! Just did one of the ‘dark ages’ radio interviews that ended with me hanging up!’  

Neil also offered his side of the situation on Twitter, saying that he was merely ‘trying to tell George how much I liked him.’ 

Responding to a listener’s tweet, Neil went on to brush the incident off as ‘hilarious.’  

The drama began when Neil described Geroge as ‘bigger than a big deal here in Australia’ , while playing his hit Karma Chameleon in the background..

Neil then confessed he was feeling ‘a bit nervous’ about getting to talk to his teenage idol.

‘Well, especially after that terrible comment about my music. I mean, there’s about 10 records you missed, which were huge, massive hits,’ George snapped.

The host was clearly taken aback, but didn’t have a chance to respond because George cut him off.

The British singer then rattled off a list of some of his other popular songs, before saying: ‘I mean, please!’

‘We know how big you were. You were big in my house…’ Neil said, as he tried in vain to calm down his highly-strung guest.

‘No, no, please don’t talk about me like I’m in past context. It’s really insulting,’ George interrupted.

Neil explained that he was simply trying to reintroduce George to listeners familiar with his music from the ’80s with Culture Club.

‘You’re reintroducing me, someone who’s been on national TV in Australia for the last four years. You don’t need to reintroduce me. I’m on TV. Everybody knows who I am,’ he said bitterly.

The stunned radio presenter told George it was ‘just a bit of fun’, as he urged him not to take his introduction so seriously.

But his comment was met with silence on the other end of the phone line, and he soon realised George had hung up.   

‘Are you there? George, are you there? Okay, well Boy George is gone,’ Neil said. 

‘We’re trying to have a bit of fun here on this breakfast radio show and he was insulted that I played Karma Chameleon, but anyway, there you go. We might play it again.’

He added: ‘Sometimes pop stars, they’re funny, they’re finicky, if you play their old song that made them famous, they want to disown it. So you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to play it again!’