Addiction to drugs, an explosive temper and being a 'gay warrior' have made a soap opera of his life, but those days are behind him, Boy George tells Nigel Farndale

The middle-aged man who answers the glass door could be anyone, though the fact that Boy George has owned this house on a hill in Hampstead for the past 16 years does narrow the possibilities. And it definitely is his house because on the gate posts, as you wait to be buzzed in, you see fans have scrawled messages to him in felt-tip - some are fresh, some faded.