Bad Boy George in Trouble Again

May 2, 2007 — -- From the hallows of Boy George's East London flat came the cries of a male escort: Do you really want to hurt me?

Well, maybe not those exact words, but when 28-year-old Auden Carlsen emerged from an East London flat, half-naked and breathless early Saturday morning, he told local authorities he feared for his life, according to a report in the British tabloid the Daily Mirror.

A story in another local tabloid, the Sun, said that Carlsen claimed that Boy George, the ex-Culture Club star, and another man allegedly held him down and chained him to a wall after the singer invited him back to his home in Shoreditch. He escaped and alerted police at around 6:30 a.m., the story said.

"George handcuffed me to a hook by the bed as they held me down," Carlsen told the Sun. The Norwegian escort then alleged that George produced a box of sex toys and whips saying, "Now you'll get what you deserve," according to the British tabloid.

The singer was arrested and taken to a London police station shortly thereafter.

Metropolitan police refused to comment on the identities of the men involved; however, a police spokesman told ABCNEWS.com: "We have arrested a man in his 40s on the allegation of false imprisonment and common assault made by a 28-year-old male. No one has been formally charged, but the matter remains under investigation."

George -- whose real name is George O'Dowd -- was later freed on bail.

'Popping out for Milk'

According to the Sun, Carlsen told police he met the '80s icon on a Web site called Gaydar -- a dating service for gay men -- and agreed to go back to George's flat at around midnight to pose as a model in exchange for $800. He claimed he did not act as an escort.

At around 5 a.m., George told Carlsen he was "popping out for milk," according to the Sun, and when he returned Carlsen said George and another man jumped on him and handcuffed him to a hook by the singer's bed.

"This is just another chapter in Boy George's wild life," said Paula Jones, deputy editor of Revealed magazine.

"He's gone from a sexish-cuddly cross-dresser in the '80s to the front pages of the tabloids for serious drug problems."

But despite George's run-ins with the law, the public's fascination with him is still strong 20 years after Culture Club's No. 1 single "Karma Cameleon" hit the charts.

"He's always been a fascinating character and is in many ways a British institution," added Jones.

Celebrity journalists describe George as a fantastic interviewee and one of the most articulate artists. His reputation for bluntness also proceeds him.

"He's not afraid to say anything -- no matter how controversial the subject," said Jones. "That's pretty extraordinary in today's music scene, where everything is so staged."

Fall From Grace

George O'Dowd was born into a working class family in southeast London.

According to Jones, Boy George was "knocking around for a while" and was quite famous on London's club scene in London well before he became a global megastar.

By the mid-'80s George was virtually a household name in many countries worldwide. His distinct voice and flamboyant persona made him an instantly recognizable figure, and he was a later chosen as one of the lead vocals for the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas" -- a recording made for charity by some of the biggest stars in British pop music.

But during the 1980s, his previously storybook career started take a bad turn. Reports of addiction to cocaine and heroin circulated in the international press, and the fans who once stormed Culture Cub appearances began to lose interest.

By the end of 1985, George's fall from grace came fast and hard.

He went public with his addictions and was later arrested by British police for possession of marijuana. A few days later, keyboardist Michael Rudetski turned up dead in George's home, reportedly from a heroin overdose.

The group canceled its upcoming world tour and officially split in late 1986.

Now in his mid-40s George has managed to survive his controversial lifestyle.

Last July he was fined and sentenced to five days community service in a New York court last July for wasting police time, reportedly after he falsely reported a burglary in his Manhattan apartment.

George pulled on his orange jacket and got busy sweeping the streets of Manhattan.

Jones said that when reporters and photographers swarmed the singer while he got to work on a Lower East Side street corner, he told them to "Go home and let me do my community service," sweeping dust on to photographers' lenses.

The incident was nothing new, she told ABCNEWS.com.

"George has always had a reputation of being very savvy when it came to handling the media," she said.

Jones recalled that during an interview a few years ago, George was quoted as saying that he preferred a cup of tea to having sex -- although Auden Carlsen would probably disagree.

Then again, to a Brit, a cup of tea just isn't a cuppa without milk.