TORONTO — Singer George Michael has denied he is receiving treatment for an addiction to crack cocaine.
The 52-year-old pop star slammed reports Sunday in the Times of London and Sun that quoted the wife of his cousin as saying Michael checked into a Swiss rehab centre at the urging of concerned family members.
Jackie Georgiou reportedly told the newspapers: “He was smoking crack.”
She allegedly said the former Wham singer “got to the point where he would be shaking, saying ‘I need it.'”
Michael took to Twitter to dismiss Georgiou’s claims as “rubbish” and assure fans he is doing well.
Reps for Michael also issued a statement shooting down the reports.
“Whilst it is our general policy not to comment on private matters, we would in this instance note that these highly inaccurate stories have been apparently provided to the press by the wife of a very distant family member, neither of whom has had any dealings with him for many many years. It is therefore unsurprising that they are so incorrect.”
Michael had a series of drug-related arrests and bizarre incidents in recent years.
In 2010 he was sentenced to eight weeks in jail after crashing his Range Rover into a London storefront. He pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of drugs.
In 2009 he was arrested on suspicion of DUI after crashing into the back of a truck. A year earlier, he was accused of possession of drugs after police found him loitering in a public washroom.
Michael was sentenced in 2006 to community service after he was convicted of driving under the influence of drugs. Police found him passed out in his car twice in only a few months
Michael also suffered a serious bout of pneumonia that left him in hospital for five weeks; an incident in 2013 in which he fell out of a moving vehicle on a British highway and suffered head injuries; and a hospitalization in May 2014 after he reportedly collapsed at his London home.
In 2014, he claimed he had “completely stopped” smoking marijuana.
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