Pit5 Music News Cache

Josh Grossberg Mon Oct 1, 11:47 AM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - A careless whisperer, maybe. But George Michael wants the world to know he's not a careless smoker.

The Listen Without Prejudice singer gave a wide-ranging interview to the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs program Sunday in which he discussed among other topics his pot habit, an obsession with "creepy crawlies," the pain he suffered after coming out and the emotional turmoil he faced after the death of his mother.

"I'm constantly trying to smoke less marijuana. I'd like to take less and less," he said. "Is it a problem in my life? Is it getting in the way of my life? I really don't think."

Of course, British police—and fellow motorists—might beg to differ.

In 2006 alone, the 44-year-old performer, born George Panayiotou, was busted twice in virtually identical mishaps in February and October after officers found him slumped in his BMW in drug-induced naps with cannabis in his possession.

In the first instance, although sleeping beauty was found with a small amount of dope and liquid ecstasy, he was released with a caution.

In the second case, Michael pleaded no contest in June to a charge of being unfit to drive and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service, fined $4,622 and banned from driving for two years.

Despite those incidents, the former Wham! man said he still has a fondess for the green stuff.

"I'm a happy man and I can afford my marijuana so that's not a problem," he said.

Last fall, the entertainer even went so far as to admit "the stuff keeps me sane and happy" and toke a joint during a TV interview in Madrid for Britain's South Bank Show Special. The blunt spectacle enraged U.K. mental health charity Rethink, prompting a spokesman to label Michael "stupid and naïve."

In his BBC confessional, Michael noted that he had fulfilled so far half of the required community service by assisting people with drug addictions and mental health issues.

"I've also scrubbed down some very dirty rooms and made chicken fajitas for some homeless people," said Michael. "I was quite good apparently."

He also expressed sympathy for R&B soulstress Amy Winehouse, who like Michael, has had her own very public meltdowns involving drugs.

"All I can say is, please, please understand how brilliant you are. I wish her every success in the future," he said. "I know she can get past the media. I don't know if she can get past other things, but she's a fantastic talent and we should support her."

He also called her the "best female vocalist" he's ever encountered, not to mention "one of the best writers." (He selected one of Winehouse songs to take with him to his theoretical desert island.)

As for his own mental health, the Grammy winner candidly described hiding his homosexuality for decades until he was "sick of the secret."

"I had been trying to tell people in my own way for years and years...something in me picked the most difficult way to do it."

In 1998, Michael was arrested by an undercover officer for exposing himself in a men's public restroom in Beverly Hills, which finally convinced the "Freedom" purveyor to come clean about his sexuality.

"In a strange way I've spent the last 15 to 20 years trying to derail my own career, but it never seems to suffer," he continued. "I suffer like crazy. I've suffered bereavements and public humiliations, but my career always seems to right itself like a plastic duck in the bath. In some ways I resent that."

Michael remarked that he had plunged into a deep depression after losing his mother Lesley, in 1997—a year before the toilet arrest—but explained that he felt compelled to keep his sexuality a secret because he didn't want to upset her.

"If my mother had still been alive then every single day would have been a nightmare for her thinking what I might have been subjected to," he said.

As for his issues with bugs, Michael talked about how when he was a child, he dreamed about becoming an entomologist.

"I used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and go out into this field behind our garden and collect insects before everyone else got up and, suddenly, all I wanted to know was music, it just seemed to be a very, very strange thing," Michael said.

Michael, whose desert island picks for the show included tunes by the Pet Shop Boys, Roxy Music and Nirvana, just wrapped a 25th anniversary tour in Europe in support of his greatest-hits collection, Twenty Five, released last November. The crooner is also said to be considering a North American trek, which would be his first in more than 15 years.

Last but not least, Michael is set to play a guardian angel opposite Jonny Lee Miller's character on the new ABC series, Eli Stone, premiering this fall.