★★★★★ 0/5

“I thought we were all in the Channel Nine tent”

Boy George hangs up on 4BC radio host Neil Breen.

16
Leave a comment

4BC radio presenter Neil Breen got a rude shock when Boy George hung up on him this morning, after an introduction didn’t go down well with The Voice coach.

Breen, a former Today show producer and Nine News sports reporter, was generous in referring to Culture Club hits but Boy George appeared miffed the focus was on the past, rather than the present.

“If you grew up like I did as a teenager in the 1980s then Boy George well he was bigger than a big deal here in Australia – he was massive.

“His band Culture Club dominated the Australian singles chart from late ’82 to ’83 with two songs – Karma Chameleon was obviously their most notable one that we remember but Do You Really Want to Hurt Me as well was their breakthrough song.”

But George, calling from London to promote Sunday’s episode, tried to laugh it off.

“Firstly that terrible comment about my music, that’s 10 records you missed that were huge massive hits,” George said while laughing. “Time (Clock of the Heart), Love is Love, I mean, please.”

“We know how big you were and you were big in my house,” Breen insisted.

“No, no please don’t talk about me like I live in past context – it’s really insulting,” George replied.

But when Breen explained he was reintroducing him to his radio audience, things got worse.

“Introduce them to someone who’s been on national TV in Australia for the last four years? You don’t need to reintroduce me; I’m on TV everyone knows who I am,” George said.

And with that he hung up.

“I didn’t want to insult Boy George, but there you go, he hung up on me and that’s the way it goes,”   Breen told listeners.

“I thought we were all in the Channel 9 tent but anyway sometimes pop stars they’re funny, they’re finicky. If you play their old song that made them famous they’ll want to disown it. So do you know what we’re going to do? we’ll play it again.”

Source: Courier Mail

16 Responses

  1. Not everyone watches The Voice so I guess he was covering all bases….doesn’t matter.anyway… as Arkair said The Voice isn’t about finding the next great singer it’s about the diva judges.

  2. Boy George has been on The Voice for four years now and is a regular fixture on our screens in Australia so he should have introduced him as such.An odd radio station fit for Boy George to go on……back to Kiis and Austereo BG or even better in house the Today show so we can see him.

  4. I read a longer discussion of the interview and it sounds like Neil started off with his foot in his mouth and just kept changing feet. George didn’t appreciate the implication that Culture Club only had two big hits, then Ben seemed to attempt to give a poorly worded “explanation” for the angle he took in the introduction (focusing on how huge Culture Club were), then offended George by implying that he needed to be reintroduced to the audience because they wouldn’t know who he was (4BC’s target audience is basically 50+ – they know full well who Boy George is). Essentially, Ben downplayed Culture Club’s catalogue and implied that Boy George didn’t have a public profile in 2020. He then tried to claim that Boy George was upset because they had played “Karma Chameleon”, but it clearly wasn’t that. I know Ben didn’t intend to insult George, but he could have handled the…

  6. Just shows the stuck up attitude of the Voice judges who think they are the stars of the show! It hasn’t been a proper talent show for years!!!!! Anybody even remember who past winners were?
    Boy George should be grateful they gave him a job

  8. Garden Party by Ricky Nelsdon comes to mind after reading that. Some artists want to turn their backs on what caused their fame in the first place.As I rarely watch the Voice I did not know or even care who the judges are, but I did like Culture Club music. I say to Boy George “get over it and don’t be such a prize …..”

  9. I’d hang up on Neil Breen too … the blokey bloke from the channel nine boys club … Didn’t he also EP the Today Show for a very short while ?

  10. Just as well he didn’t bring up Boy George’s conviction for false imprisonment of a Norwegian male escort, for which he 2as sentenced to 15 months jail 🤔

  11. It wasn’t playing George’s song, it was the belittling way he was spoken about, like he had two hits 40 years ago and nobody heard from him since. I would have hung up too, who needs to take crap from a cocky no-name breakfast jock?

    1. More you think about it, it looks suspiciously like a pre-planned publicity stunt between two nine “personalities” to get some publicity for a struggling show

Leave a Reply