George Michael Trivia
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59 free George Michael trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
George Michael wrote Careless Whisper on a bus at 17, took Wham! to China, and then made Faith, the album that won a Grammy for Album of the Year and made him the biggest pop star on the planet. This quiz follows the whole story: Bushey Meads School and the nickname Yog, the ska band the Executive, Innervision Records, Choose Life T-shirts, the Wembley farewell, and a solo career that swung between the leather-jacket-and-jukebox era and the man who refused to appear in his own videos. Expect questions on the supermodels in Freedom! '90, the fight with Sony, the tribute to Anselmo Feleppa, Fastlove and Older, the Beverly Hills arrest and the Outside video that answered it, Shoot the Dog, Patience, the Freddie Mercury tribute concert, Carpool Karaoke, the coma in Vienna, and the strange afterlife of Last Christmas, which reached number one 36 years after release. His quiet philanthropy, his final concert and his 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction are here too. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on George Michael, Wham! and the individual songs and albums, so the chart positions, dates and names will satisfy the most devoted fan.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01George Michael was born in East Finchley in 1963 under what name?
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. The son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer, he swapped it for the simpler George Michael as he and Andrew Ridgeley launched Wham!
Q 02At Bushey Meads School, where he met Andrew Ridgeley, George Michael went by which nickname?
Yog
Yog. The nickname lasted a lifetime: when Michael died in 2016, Ridgeley wrote that he was heartbroken at the loss of "my beloved friend Yog".
Q 03Before Wham!, Michael and Ridgeley played in a short-lived band called the Executive in which genre?
Ska
Ska. The teenagers formed the Executive on the heels of the 2 Tone revival led by the Specials and Madness, and their demo tape featured an original called 'Rude Boy'.
Q 04Which famous instrument did George Michael buy at auction for £1.45 million in 2000?
John Lennon's 'Imagine' piano
John Lennon's 'Imagine' piano. He called it a piece of history that should stay in Britain, and in 2007 he sent it on a peace tour of American sites scarred by violence.
Q 05Wham! signed their first record deal with which label after Ridgeley pestered its boss in a Bushey Heath pub?
Innervision
Innervision. Mark Dean signed them in 1982 after Ridgeley kept handing him demo tapes at the Three Crowns, but the duo soon fought a legal battle to get out of the contract and moved to Epic.
Q 06Wham!'s 'Club Tropicana' video was filmed at Pikes Hotel on which Mediterranean island?
Ibiza
Ibiza. Pikes was a favourite haunt of Freddie Mercury, who celebrated his 41st birthday there, and the hotel still tells of Wham! shimmying around its pool for the video.
Q 07Which Wham! hit owes its title to a slip of Andrew Ridgeley's pen?
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. In a note asking to be woken, Ridgeley wrote 'up' twice by accident and doubled 'go' to match; Michael saw it on his friend's bedroom door and turned it into Wham!'s first No. 1.
Q 08Which designer created the oversized 'CHOOSE LIFE' T-shirts that Wham! wore in a 1984 video?
Katharine Hamnett
Katharine Hamnett. She saw slogan T-shirts as a way to broadcast a message, and Wham! made this one a craze: Queen's Roger Taylor wore CHOOSE LIFE in the 'Hammer to Fall' video.
Q 09Which hit did the teenage George Michael dream up on a bus?
Careless Whisper
Careless Whisper. The sax line came to him as he paid his bus fare, but the record took years: he scrapped a version made in Alabama with veteran producer Jerry Wexler and produced it himself.
Q 10George Michael sang 'These Are the Days of Our Lives' with which singer at the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute?
Lisa Stansfield
Lisa Stansfield. Their duet came out a year later on the Five Live EP, which topped the UK chart and raised money for the Mercury Phoenix Trust, the AIDS charity launched after the concert.
Q 11In April 1985 Wham! became the first Western pop act to tour which country?
China
China. Manager Simon Napier-Bell spent 18 months winning permission, and later admitted he had steered officials away from Queen with a brochure showing Freddie Mercury at his most flamboyant.
Q 12Which Band Aid singer did Bob Geldof summon from New York by Concorde to record alongside George Michael?
Boy George
Boy George. He made it to the studio in time to sing his lines, and the record became the fastest-selling single Britain had ever seen, spending five weeks at No. 1.
Q 13Which Elton John song did Michael sing with Elton at Live Aid in July 1985?
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me
Q 21Which US radio host refused to say the title of 'I Want Your Sex' on air?
Casey Kasem
Casey Kasem. On American Top 40 he introduced it only as George Michael's new single, while other stations played a toned-down edit that swapped the word 'sex' for 'love'.
Q 22'I Want Your Sex' also appeared on the soundtrack of which 1987 film?
Beverly Hills Cop II
Beverly Hills Cop II. The film soundtrack carried the song months before the Faith album arrived, and although many stations refused to play it or aired it only late at night, it still made the top three in Britain and America.
Q 23In which Faith single's video does George Michael play a taxi driver involved with a model?
Father Figure
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me. At Live Aid Michael was the guest on Elton's 1974 hit; when the pair released a live duet of it in 1991, it went to No. 1 in both Britain and America.
Q 14The 'Last Christmas' video was filmed at a ski resort in which country?
Switzerland
Switzerland. The video was shot in the resort of Saas-Fee with friends including backing singers Pepsi and Shirlie, and Wham! gave the single's royalties to Ethiopian famine relief.
Q 15Which actress co-wrote the 2019 film Last Christmas, inspired by the Wham! song?
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson. She wrote it with Bryony Kimmings and plays the heroine's mother; the song itself needed 36 years to top the UK chart, getting there at last in 2021.
Q 16Wham!'s farewell concert, with Elton John dressed as Ronald McDonald, was billed as what?
The Final
The Final. Elton, a surprise guest in a floppy red wig and clown make-up, played piano for the 72,000 fans, as he had on the duo's farewell single, and came back for the encore.
Q 17Which Wham! farewell single reached UK No. 1 in June 1986?
The Edge of Heaven
The Edge of Heaven. Wham! had announced months earlier that it would be their last single, as Michael wanted to move on to more adult music, and it was No. 1 the week they played their farewell concert.
Q 18After Wham! split, Andrew Ridgeley moved to Monaco and tried his hand at what?
Formula Three motor racing
Formula Three motor racing. Living in Monaco in 1986, he competed in the French Formula 3 championship, but he met with little success and his career as a racing driver was brief.
Q 19Keren Woodward, Andrew Ridgeley's partner for more than two decades, sang in which group?
Bananarama
Bananarama. While Michael became a solo superstar, Ridgeley left pop behind and settled with Woodward for a quiet life in Cornwall.
Q 20Michael's 1987 duet 'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' paired him with which soul legend?
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin. For all her classics, the Queen of Soul had never topped the British chart until this duet, which went to No. 1 in both the UK and the US and won the pair a Grammy.
Father Figure. It began as a mid-tempo dance track, but when Michael muted the snare drum in the mix it turned into a gospel-tinged ballad, and it went to No. 1 in America.
Q 24The 'Faith' rhythm guitar part is built on a classic rock and roll rhythm named after which musician?
Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley. The song is said to have grown from Dick Leahy's suggestion that Michael write a rock and roll pastiche, a sharp turn for a singer trying to leave teen pop behind.
Q 25Which song gave the Faith album its fourth US No. 1 single?
Monkey
Monkey. The album's first single had stalled short of the top amid radio bans, but four of those that followed went to No. 1, and this one completed the run.
Q 26Faith topped the Billboard 200 and made history by also reaching No. 1 on which chart?
Top Black Albums
Top Black Albums. No white solo artist had led it before, and Michael told Jet he was much happier with that No. 1 than with topping the pop chart, as it felt like more of an achievement.
Q 27Which Grammy did Faith win at the 31st Grammy Awards in February 1989?
Album of the Year
Album of the Year. It capped his escape from teen pop: less than three years after Wham! split, an album he had written and produced himself took the Grammys' top prize.
Q 28Which 1990 George Michael single had a video showing nothing but its lyrics on a dark background?
Praying for Time
Praying for Time. With Michael refusing to appear on screen, the album's lead single went out with a video that simply unrolled its words about poverty and injustice.
Q 29Which director made the 'Freedom '90' video, in which supermodels lip-synced instead of Michael?
David Fincher
David Fincher. Michael had grown weary of his pin-up image and refused to appear in videos for the album, so Fincher filmed five supermodels miming the words in his place.
Q 30In the 'Freedom '90' video, which three symbols of the Faith era are destroyed?
Leather jacket, jukebox and guitar
Leather jacket, jukebox and guitar. The jacket burns and the jukebox and guitar explode in time with the chorus: Michael was publicly torching the image that had made him a superstar.