George Michael Sentenced In Lewd Act Case

British pop star George Michael has pleaded no contest to engaging in a lewd act last month in a Beverly Hills park restroom.

Michael, 34, was not in court on Thursday when Judge Charles Rubin sentenced him to pay a $810 fine and perform 80 hours of community service. Michael's attorney, Ira Reiner, entered the no-contest plea at Beverly Hills Municipal Court during the arraignment, which was scheduled shortly after the singer's April 7 arrest.

Judge Rubin also ordered Michael to undergo counseling and banned him from entering Will Rogers Park, where an undercover police officer allegedly witnessed him engaging in a lewd act by himself. Michael was arrested immediately and taken to the Beverly Hills police department where he was booked under his birth name, Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, and released after posting a $500 bail.

Michael was charged with a single misdemeanor count of lewd conduct, which can carry a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Just days after his arrest, Michael announced during a CNN interview that he is gay. "I feel stupid and I feel reckless and weak for having allowed my sexuality to be exposed this way, but I don't feel any shame whatsoever," he told reporter Jim Moret on Friday, April 10.

A high school drop-out at age 17, Michael achieved superstardom just one year later as half of the pop duo Wham!, which topped the charts in the '80s with the singles "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Careless Whisper." Michael parted ways with collaborator Andrew Ridgeley in 1986, and released the platinum album Faith one year later.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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