Christy Turlington Burns Recalls Meeting George Michael
She appeared in the "Freedom! '90" music video.
— -- Christy Turlington Burns only met George Michael once -- while filming the music video for his song "Freedom! '90" -- but the experience left an impression on her.
The day after his death on Christmas Day, Burns posted a photo on Instagram of her from the video, writing, "It's a blue Christmas without you #GeorgeMichael Thank you for your soulful music and open heart."
The former Wham! singer was found dead at his home in England at the age of 53 on Christmas morning.
Burns spoke to Rolling Stone about the man she met while filming the video.
"I remember him being kind of shy," she said. "He was a person who was certainly in control; his aura. He came in with a baseball hat. He didn't have an entourage or anything like that. The whole production seemed pretty pared down, in retrospect."
Burns appeared in the popular video alongside fellow supermodels Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Tatjana Patitz. All five had appeared together on the cover of British Vogue. Having seen it, Michael hired David Fincher to direct the five women in the video lip-synching the song's lyrics. But it was clear the singer was in charge.
"He was super focused on the production and getting it exactly as it seemed he had in his mind," Burns recalled. "He was super hands-on and looking through the camera oftentimes and just incredibly engaged in each shot. I've heard since that he micromanaged it quite a bit and I think he ultimately had the final cut, which I learned about only this year. It wasn't a party atmosphere."
Looking back on the experience, Burns said she was touched by Michael's openness at that stage in his life.
"Without knowing him very well, certainly there was a sense that he was a person who struggled a lot having a persona and trying to maintain some kind of private life publicly," she said. "There are some people who do it better than others, clearly, and I thought he was just very open-hearted about what he was dealing with in the moment at any phase of his life and career. And I think that's something to respect. It's something to learn from."