George Michael – doctors ‘kept me alive’

Back in London from Vienna, where he was treated in hospital, Michael said: “I don’t want to take you through all of it because some of it I want to protect my family from and I’m sure I’ll get it all written down, but it was by far the worst month of my life.

“I feel amazing. I mean, I’m very weak but I feel amazing. I’d say touch and go for a couple of weeks but we played it down. I didn’t want to worry my fans too much and I’m really sorry I couldn’t contact them in any way before now, but I was really not in any state to.

“I’m incredibly, incredibly fortunate to be here and incredibly fortunate to have picked up this bug where I did because apparently the hospital in Austria that they rushed me to was absolutely the best place in the world I could have been to deal with pneumonia, so I have to believe that somebody thinks I’ve still got some work to do here.”

It was by far the worst month of my life. George Michael

The former Wham singer was taken ill while touring and had to cancel some of his concerts. He was due to perform in Britain until the week before Christmas.

Pledge

He made this pledge to his fans outside his north London home: “I promise them, absolutely without question, the plan is to play to every single person who had a ticket.

“Also, actually I would like to play one other show for the doctors in Austria that saved my life because I spent the last 10 days since I woke up literally thanking people for saving my life which is something I have never had to do before and never want to do again.”

In September, Michael was sentenced to eight weeks in prison after admitting crashing his car into a shop while under the influence of cannabis.