Michael hits out at paper's 'distortion'

The pop star George Michael yesterday launched a scathing attack yesterday on The Sunday Times newspaper for distorting an article he had written for them about his purchase of John Lennon's piano.

The pop star George Michael yesterday launched a scathing attack yesterday on The Sunday Times newspaper for distorting an article he had written for them about his purchase of John Lennon's piano.

In a letter to other newspapers he said: "Last week I was asked by The Sunday Times if I would like to write a short piece for them about John Lennon's piano, and my reasons for buying it. Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm it slipped my mind that The Sunday Times is not quite the paper that it was."

He went on to say his piece had been "typically dumbed down and seriously de-clawed", and criticised an accompanying news article for inferring "that I had been critical of the Spice Girls, Take That, and even suggest[ing] that I had wanted to prevent John's widow Yoko One from getting the piano herself".

The original article, he points out "mentioned none of these people, because it was an attack on the corporate takeover of youth culture, nothing more, nothing less... All I can say to the editor of The Sunday Times is, I guess, it's not just music that is in trouble".

The key changes are alterations of rude words and the exclusion of most of a paragraph in which Michael explains how pop's corporate culture has lost touch with youth talent.