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Gigs & Festivals
Michael cancels Australian dates because of “major anxiety”
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 1 October 2012
George Michael has cancelled the Australian leg of his current tour, admitting that he is suffering from “major anxiety” following his battle with pneumonia at the end of last year.
The singer, who said it “breaks my heart” to pull of our nine Aussie dates, says that he underestimated the mental strain of recovering from his life-threatening pneumonia, which saw the star spend a month in a hospital in Vienna, where he had been due to perform before falling ill.
Although Michael has returned to the stage in Europe since his illness, and says he plans to go ahead with UK dates later this month, he told fans that his recovery has been much harder than he anticipated.
Michael: “I have tried in vain to work my way through the trauma that the doctors who saved my life warned me I would experience. They recommended complete rest and the type of post-traumatic counselling which is available in cases like mine, but I’m afraid I believed (wrongly) that making music and getting out there to perform for the audiences that bring me such joy would be therapy enough in itself. Unfortunately, I seriously underestimated how difficult this year would be”.