Boy George Cleans Up and Lets Loose on Reporters

Does the media really want to hurt him? It was less than an hour into Boy George's court-ordered community services stint on Monday morning when the former Culture Club diva and the media butted heads. Boy George was sentenced to five days of community service in March after he falsely reported a burglary at his Manhattan apartment and the responding officers stumbled across his cocaine. Oops. Those charges were dropped, but the false burglary report led to the week of community cleanliness for Boy George. So, with none of his trademark makeup or fashion flair, Boy George put on his orange Department of Sanitation vest, some dark pants, and set out to clean up the New York streets.

It wasn't long before the gathered fans and press got to Mr. George however, as he yelled to the media, "You think you're better than me? Go home. Let me do my community service. This is supposed to be making me humble. Let me do this. I just want to do my job."

The outbursts from Boy George at the reporters following him continued over the course of his morning duty, with The Times Online quoting Boy George as shouting, "My mum was a cleaner. My dad was a builder. I do not give a f***, you know. All I am doing is my community service. Let me do it." It didn't end there. Boy George tacked on a little bit later as he personally yelled at a reporter from an American TV show, "You’re really pathetic. You’re the one following me sweeping the streets. Who needs to get a life better than you?"

That near-scuffle was it on Monday morning, as sanitation workers, Boy George's chaperones I suppose, broke things up and hurried their hard worker back into a van, where he was shuttled off to the garage. A spokesman for the Sanitation Department, Keith Mellis, told reporters "Things outside in the street were a little chaotic. We'll see if there's some cleaning that can be done inside."

As reported by People Magazine, Boy George (aka George O'Dowd) hadn't reported for community service duty in June and was threatened by a judge at Manhattan Criminal Court with jail time. Jail or raking leaves in an orange suit? Not much of a choice for Boy George, as his manager Jeremy Pearce told reporters on Monday, "He doesn't show any kind of emotion about these things. He takes it in his stride. He doesn't need to be humiliated. He's a humble person."

Boy George actually got pretty lucky with his timing. His workload today should be less than usual. The Chinatown district, where Boy George is doing his clean-up work, was cleaned thoroughly yesterday as a part of "beautification day", when 250 volunteers spent the second half of their weekend cleaning the streets. As Ping Ling, one of the volunteers, told The New York Daily News, "We did a lot of work for him, but it's such a dirty place, after a few days, it is going to be dirty again."

[Sources: People, The New York Daily News, The Times Online]