An actor who worked with Boy George on the Broadway production of Moulin Rouge! has criticised the singer’s acting.
The Culture Club frontman played Harold Zidler in the show, an adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 musical film, on the Broadway stage last year. He made headlines recently by admitting his controversial pro-Israel song, ‘We Will Dance Again’ was made using generative AI.
Patrick Clanton, who appeared in the show with Boy George, took to Instagram to make his feelings about the singer known. Sharing a news report about the AI song, he wrote “Y’know, I used to defend his performance in our show, but fuck it. He was a terrible performer and I was embarrassed to be in the show with him. Boy, Bye!”
He followed that up by writing: “Whenever people would ask about him I’d just say ‘He was really nice!’ But as Sondheim taught us, ‘Nice is different than good.’” The final quote is a line from the Sondheim musical Into The Woods. Screenshots of the post were published by EW.
‘We Will Dance Again’ is a defence of Israel’s military action in Gaza, opening with the line “You say genocide, I say war” and describing pro-Palestine artists as “sheep” in its lyrics. Boy George discussed the song on Threads, writing: “As imperfect as it is! The song was created using AI. I call it ‘AI for good’. Truthfully, I would struggle to write this with a human!”
A United Nations Commission concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and said last month that genocidal acts were continuing through attacks targeting children. Amnesty International also concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly denied committing genocide or war crimes, maintaining that its military campaign is an act of self-defence following October 7. It also rejected the UN findings as “distorted and false” and a “libellous sham”.
In May, Boy George represented San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest, but did not make it through to the final.