In 1998, after his arrest in a public toilet in Beverly Hills, USA, made headlines around the world, international pop star George Michael chose not to hide from the controversy. Instead, he turned it into Outside – a hit single and music video that playfully embraced the scandal.<\/p>\n
The colourful video helped transform an embarrassing moment into one of the most memorable pop culture statements of the decade.<\/p>\n
Director, Vaughan Arnell, tells Gill Kearsley how he and George Michael developed the idea for the video, filmed it in Los Angeles and turned a tabloid scandal into one of the most talked-about music videos of the 1990s.<\/p>\n
Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.<\/p>\n
When you subscribe to Witness History, you\u2019ll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa\u2019s fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba \u201cthaw\u201d and the surprise announcement of restored relations.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal’s worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden\u2019s Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles\u2019 George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy\u2019s show to a sudden end.<\/p>\n
And if you\u2019re curious about inventions, we\u2019ll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history \u2013 all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.<\/p>\n
(Photo: George Michael in the Outside video. Credit: Godman\/Vaughan Arnell)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1998, after his arrest in a public toilet in Beverly Hills, USA, made headlines around the world,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-670011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}