Rob Thomas Remembers His Friend George Michael: Knowing Him Was “a True Gift”

December 28, 2016 Andrea Dresdale

Emblem/AtlanticImagine growing up idolizing someone and then becoming friends with them later in life. That’s what happened with Rob Thomas and George Michael, who passed away on Christmas at the age of 53. The two men met through their manager, and Rob says getting to know the late British superstar was a “true gift.”

“To be able to have that kind of insight…not just [into] someone that you admire, but someone that you admire that does what you want to do, at a level that you can only hope that you would ever be able to do it…I think it’s a gift to be able to know somebody like that,” Rob tells ABC Radio.

He adds, “I would sit at his house with him in Texas and we’d sit up late at night having many, many wines and…just talking about what I was on track about, and maybe what I could change, and how to not be so self-conscious.”

Rob also says George was even OK with how much he’d actually “ripped off” from him, from album covers, to song titles, to the video for his top-10 hit “Lonely No More,” which Rob admits he “took straight from the ‘Faith’ [play]-book.”

Not only did Rob admire George as a performer, but also as a songwriter whose catalog encompassed the pop hits of Wham! to upbeat jams like “Faith,” to serious tunes like “Jesus to a Child.”

“I think that’s why everybody over the last few days since Christmas has just been going through [his] entire catalog, and just going, ‘Oh, I forgot about that one! Oh my God, I forgot about that one! Oh, and that one!'” notes Rob. “It’s just…non-stop….your entire life — not just your childhood, but your entire life — just kinda coming back before your eyes.”