George Michael talks about drugs, cruising for sex and why he wants Elton John to mind his own business

George Michael offers no excuses or apologies.

The 46-year-old singer talked to The Guardian newspaper about his drug use (he smokes about seven marijuana joints a day!) and practice of cruising for sex in public toilets on Hampstead Heath, a gay cruising area close to his home in north London.

Says Michael: “It’s a much nicer place to get some quick and honest sex than standing in a bar, E’d off your tits (high on ecstasy) shouting at somebody and hoping they want the same thing as you do in bed.’

Elton John has expressed concern for his well-being which Michael does not seem to appreciate.

‘Elton lives on that,” he told the newspaper. “He will not be happy until I bang on his door in the middle of the night saying, ‘Please, please, help me, Elton. Take me to rehab.’ It’s not going to happen.

‘Elton just needs to shut his mouth and get on with his own life. Look, if people choose to believe that I’m sitting here in my ivory tower, Howard Hughesing myself with long fingernails and loads of drugs, then I can’t do anything about that, can I?’

He added: ‘People want to see me as tragic with all the cottaging and drug-taking… those things are not what most people aspire to, and I think it removes people’s envy to see your weaknesses.

‘I don’t even see them as weaknesses any more. It’s just who I am.’