Who was Pete Burns and what did he do?
Well for me he was a singer who went on to become even more famous for his looks and courting controversy with his TV appearances. He rose to fame through his music and particularly the hits that took him onto Top of the Pop with his second band Dead or Alive. The big hit for Burns was the 1985 classic "you spin me round" which is still an awesome tune to hear and was used at the beginning of last nights Strictly Come Dancing.
Now looking back, growing up in the 1980's was a strange an potentially confusing time with different fashions and trends not just music genera. We still had some mods, rockers, punks, hippies, yuppies etc and we also had a new wave of rappers, house artist, pop stars and new romantics just to mention a few. It was also often difficult for a youngster to work out whether some artists were male or female with the preening of artists hair and looks. of course with the innocents of youth sexuality was not considered it was simply "is that a boy or a girl?" as Pete Burns with his androgynous looks performed at the same times as Boy George and Marilyn.
The above picture shows what I thing is Pete Burns looking at his best, this is the pop star from my childhood I remember and I think he looks good int his photo. But the presences of the eye patch is an indication of how a comment about him had already started his to manifest as an insecurity and develop into a quest to reach a perfection which lead to a tragic story. I am not going to judge whether his idea of perfection was right or wrong. Its this point I want to pick up on really as its happens all to often.
Watching a recent TV program featuring Pete Burns I learnt what started his life with plastic surgery. The way Pete Burns told it was that he had previously had small accident where he broke his nose subsequently, later in life he was at a photo shoot in which he overheard a simple comment by the photographer asking someone to get Pete to move slightly so he could lose the broken nose look. Surely that broke nose was simply part of Pete? but he took it as a recognition of his imperfection and immediately sought a nose job. This subsequently started to collapse and Pete found using an eye patch he could hid the nose repair more surgery was on the cards.
There are other examples of extreme plastic surgery addictions being caused by individual event. We are told by the media that Michael Jackson's life of plastic surgery and use of painkillers was triggered by the incident of his hair catching fire during a Pepsi promotion. It s said that this left the star bald and scarred, to deal with the pain he was prescribed the pain killers that went on to kill him and he changed his looks significantly
As we know from then on Pete Burns' quest for perfection saw him try a number of procedures and again things went wrong, we all remember the front page tabloid headlines of his lips engorged with infection following filler injection that had gone wrong. there were then other problems he had which may have been linked to surgery and the treatment after in order to heal and correct the damage.
For me this lead Pete down a narrow path of trying to make the best he could with what was left. Pete quest for perfection and change his look had ironically put him in the limelight and given him a career over the last 2 decades and i wonder if some of his outlandish behaviour we say on Big brother was him trying to deal with thing.
I think what I am trying to say is that despite the the fame and front stars have they often have insecurities which lead them into avenues they didn't expect. The reason this is important is that small or large incidents and small comments can really effect people, the famous live under a microscope and therefore deal with things in what becomes more extreme ways. Sometimes we have no idea of the impact of the things we say or do, I'm not talking about bullying or the legitimization of bullying we call Banter I'm talking about the judgments we make in almost innocence. it just makes you think a little when its put like this.
One simple comment possibly not even meant as an insult changed the path of Pete Burns' life. But what an entertainer, whether it was his music, his TV appearances or other behaviour Pete Burns' entertained.
If you don't remember what made him famous just listen to his biggest hit You Spin Me Round or even this one Brand New Lover without the eye patch and very 1980's
I didn't grow up with Pete Burns, I think you're slightly older than I. I had seen the results of his surgery though and would never have known it started with a negative comment. We can be a very uncaring society although on the flipside we can be way more sensitive than we should be too. The world is weird and wonderful, just like Pete Burns by the sounds of it.
ReplyDelete