Martin Kemp has revealed the extreme lengths George Michael went to after he was diagnosed with two brain tumours in 1995. The Spandau Ballet singer, 65, noticed a lump on the back of his head, and doctors successfully operated to remove the larger tumour, located just below his skull. However, the second tumour was embedded deep in his brain, making surgery extremely risky.
George Michael's search for a surgeon
Speaking on Loose Women in 2017, Martin said that George, who died in 2016, "searched the world" to find a surgeon capable of performing the operation. "He did so much for all my family, he was such a lovely man," Martin said. "He made the phone to me from Shirlie, for Shirlie to ask me out. He got me into EastEnders. He searched the world for a surgeon to sort out my second brain tumour. He did a lot for us."
Doctors decided not to operate on the second tumour. Instead, it was successfully treated using non-invasive radiotherapy.
Treatment at Barts Hospital
Martin also opened up about George's help during an appearance on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2014. He recalled: "Shirlie went off with George Michael and they found this professor and he said to me, 'They haven't tried it before but there's a machine in Barts Hospital called stereotactic radiation where they zap it from all different angles'.
"They'd only tried it on cancer patients and never on a benign tumour so they didn't know if it was going to work. I went there and within 20 minutes of being zapped the thing started to die."
"So it was a lot of stress and a lot of worry, but I'd finally reached the end of it... He's a special person, George. He's been a good friend to us for years."
A lifelong friendship
George was not only a lifelong friend of Martin's, he also set him up on his first date with Shirlie. The Faith hitmaker even joined the pair on their first date. "It's funny because I remember the first date that Shirlie and I ever went on. George came as a chaperone. I spent the whole evening trying to lose him so that me and Shirlie could sneak off somewhere and snog," he added.
Martin and Shirlie have been married since 1988 and have two children, Harley and Roman.
