This has not been a banner week for faded British pop stars who do drugs. First we are subjected to George Michael's whining that gay people don't like him because he's out (uh, right). Now Boy George, last seen cleaning up garbage in NYC as part of a sentence for filing a false burglary claim, is being slammed by his former Culture Club bandmates.
Two of the band's founding members told The Associated Press on Thursday that they're furious with Boy George, who recently accepted a songwriting award without telling them, labeled their new vocalist "dreadful" and, they claim, made their lives a misery.
"We've never said anything about George, because George has always been George," said Jon Moss, the band's drummer and Boy George's former boyfriend. "But this has gone too far."

Later this year, Moss, bassist Mikey Craig and keyboard player Phil Pickett will be back on the road as Culture Club Reborn. Boy George will not be joining them. The band found success in the 80s with such hits as "Karma Chameleon," "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and "Church of the Poison Mind" and androgynous George became an early MTV star and a global style icon. But his heroin addiction and flagging record sales led to a bust-up for the band. The band reunited with some success in 1998 but Boy George didn't want to tour again this year. The band recruited 29-year-old unknown Sam Butcher for a British tour that starts Dec. 7.

Boy George was not impressed, telling an audience at a music awards ceremony that he thought the new singer was "dreadful. I wanted to like it," he said of the group's new sound, "but I couldn't."

Moss, now married with three children, has a particularly volatile relationship with the singer. He and George were lovers at the height of the band's success, though the relationship was not made public at the time. In his autobiography "Take It Like a Man," Boy George said many Culture Club lyrics were about his feelings for Moss and claimed the band's breakup was driven by the collapse of their relationship.

Moss says the book is misleading.

"He says I was ashamed" of the relationship, Moss said. "I'm not ashamed of anything. My parents know, all my friends knew. There's no problem there."

He said George's claim the band split "because he was distraught and broken-hearted over our love affair" was "complete and utter cobbler's (rubbish). The only person George loves is George ... He's like a nightmare ex-wife."