Boy George

Boy George is a recurring figure in these diary entries not through a sustained biography, but through a series of sharply contrasting encounters: Warhol first judges his appearance, then finds him unexpectedly engaging, and later watches crowds and police compete for his attention. The episodes make celebrity visible as both a public performance and a social relationship, filtered through Warhol’s candid, changeable judgments.

First encounter and changing impressions

On Thanksgiving in 1984, Warhol went to Madison Square Garden with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Cornelia Guest to see Boy George. Warhol could not warm to him, saying his appearance reminded him of what Jackie Curtis might have become; Basquiat, by contrast, liked him. Warhol’s response was immediate and physical, focused on Boy George’s weight, but the disagreement already makes clear that the singer did not produce a single, settled impression among the people around him. After the concert, Basquiat recalled Halston’s previous Thanksgiving and wanted to go there, prompting the group to leave; Boy George was not described as joining them.

At a dinner at The Odeon restaurant in January 1985, Boy George’s presence altered the balance of a large gathering: twelve people occupied two tables, while Basquiat was nodding off and Keith Haring and Warhol were largely silent. Boy George, there with a companion identified as Marilyn, carried the conversation. Warhol found him intelligent and talkative, a marked change from his earlier dismissive reaction. The diary also records the care of his appearance: he repeatedly used a powder puff, and Warhol admired his eye makeup.

Celebrity, conversation, and the press

That dinner also shows Boy George weighing the reliability of his social connections. He was unsure whether Joan Rivers was really his friend and considered calling her simply to talk, as a way of finding out. He also disliked a line about him and his boyfriend in Rivers’s interview in Interview. Warhol said he had not wanted the line included. The detail gives the magazine’s celebrity culture a personal edge: published material could affect a friendship, or at least a celebrity’s confidence in one, rather than remaining harmless publicity.

Public spectacle and social ease

In a later May 1985 entry, Boy George arrived with Cornelia Guest at the Apollo for a Hall and Oates benefit for the Negro College Fund. He sat in a box and threw kisses. After the show, Warhol saw police crowding around him for autographs and remarked that he had never witnessed such a response. The scene presents fame as something enacted between performer and audience: a gesture from the box, followed by an eager crowd pressing close.

That evening continued at a Scavullo benefit, where Boy George and Marilyn were in the audience for a fashion show. Warhol, wearing Stephen Sprouse, and Cornelia Guest received the biggest applause. Boy George and Marilyn then invited Warhol to dinner, though he chose a cab rather than their limousine. At Mr. Chow’s, the group’s behavior struck him as bratty; he did not single Boy George out as the source of the insults. Instead, he speculated that Boy George and Marilyn liked him because he was not quick enough to answer their mean remarks, and therefore did not threaten them. Across these encounters, Boy George moves from an object of Warhol’s snap judgment to a conversational companion and a star whose public appeal is confirmed by the people seeking his attention.