LONDON:

Pop star George Michael openly smoked cannabis and said the drug kept him “sane and happy” in a British television interview, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported on October 20.

The tabloid said the singer, 43, puffed on a joint during the interview for ITV’s flagship arts programme The South Bank Show, which is seen in more than 60 countries.

He denied he was having a breakdown this year after being hit with police drugs cautions, being found asleep at the wheel of his car twice, and allegedly being caught “cruising” for gay sex at a notorious London pick-up spot.

Filmed backstage before a concert in Madrid, Michael also said he was “sexually frustrated” for years as he struggled to pretend he was straight. The former Wham! frontman said of cannabis: “This is the only drug I’ve ever thought worth taking but you have to wait. It never occurred to me to take even this until I was about 22 or 23. This stuff keeps me sane and happy. I could write without it ... if I were sane and happy.

“I’d say it’s a great drug — but obviously it’s not very healthy. You can’t afford to smoke it if you’ve got anything to do. Anything at all would be foolish.”He insisted cannabis was “very good for creative people”. But the singer added that it could be a “terrible, terrible drug”, warning it could “chill you out to such a degree that you could lose your ambitions”.