Poor Boy George!

The pop singer, who achieved fame in the 1980s as Culture Club’s front man, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison after being found guilty of falsely imprisoning a male escort. Norwegian-born Audun Carlsen claimed that George chained him up in the entertainer’s posh London pad, and held him there for a little less than an hour. Boy George, whose real name is George Alan O’Dowd, admits he handcuffed Carlsen, but only so that he could investigate whether the escort had tampered with a computer. Oh, yeah, that makes sense!

This sentencing is just one of O’Dowd’s run-ins with the law, but it may be the stiffest. O’Dowd had to serve community service in 2006 after calling police to his New York apartment for an alleged burglary. Coppers didn’t find any criminals, but did discover O’Dowd’s not-so-hidden stash of cocaine. This Boy’s obviously not the sharpest tool. His lawyers insisted during this trial that his drug use impaired his judgment. Said lawyer Adrian Waterman:

This defendant is a kind and generous man who is particularly mindful of others’ needs. He is the antithesis of the haughty bullying star. He was not himself when addled by the habitual and relatively long-lasting using of illegal drugs.

The judge obviously did not agree.