David Austin, George’s close friend since childhood and long-term collaborator said:

For three years George, myself and his loyal team have worked relentlessly alongside our amazing team at Sony and together we have carefully crafted and put together our beautiful Listen Without Prejudice/MTV Unplugged campaign and film Freedom. It’s no great secret that George was a perfectionist and it shows – he was over everything from its inception to its finish, and it’s a blessing and rare gift to be guided by such genius. That, along with exceptional teamwork and the overwhelming love for George from the public has made everything come together. We are all so incredibly proud to have the Number 1 album in the UK.

Legendary producer Nile Rodgers, who collaborated with George for the remake of Fantasy, said:

I’m eternally grateful to George for choosing me to work on this project. His genius will be missed. And I’m equally grateful to David Austin, for convincing me to finish after George had passed. I was in a funk for months, and one day David said to me rather matter-of-factly, ‘Yog would love it. That’s why he called you in the first place.

George was still putting the finishing touches to Freedom on Christmas Day 2016. The film was an intimate look into the extraordinary life and career of the award-winning singer and songwriter. Narrated by George, it features never-seen personal footage and interviews with music legends.

Symphonica opened at the Prague State Opera House. During this tour George Michael performed a carefully chosen selection of his own songs, spanning a remarkable 30-year career, as well as covers of some of his favourite songs from other artists, with music being re-worked and re-arranged for the orchestra that accompanied him.

In George’s word: “I’ve always wanted to sing with this kind of backing and really use my voice. There will be covers and there will be a lot of songs from my own history that people have never heard me sing before live; there’ll be songs from the album Songs From The Last Century, because I thought it was such a beautiful album, beautifully arranged and produced and those arrangements did deserve a wider audience.“

George Michael’s contributions to pop culture didn’t end at music. He was also an integral part ABC’s Eli Stone. The first episode was aired on January 2008 and George was prominently featured in this American legal comedy-drama TV series which lasted two seasons. The show’s creators, Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim shared their memories of George.

“George was a singular talent,” Guggenheim told. “He had a gift for music that only comes along once in a generation. It was just a bonus that he happened to be one of the nicest, most genuine people you could meet. Many of my fondest memories of the Eli Stone experience are associated with him. George was such a class act.”

“I’ve only witnessed true genius a few times in my life. One of those was watching George Michael lay down Feeling Good for Eli Stone,” Berlanti declared. “He was an incredible talent and even more a sweet, kind man to all lucky enough to work with or spend time around him.”

25 Live was the most commercially successful tour of 2006–2007 in Europe, grossing over $200 million.

George Michael signed a new worldwide recording deal with the U.K. arm of Sony Music. A Sony spokesperson declined to comment on terms of the deal. In 2004, during Patience’s promotion, George commented on the subject.

There are three reasons he kissed and made up with Sony. The business practices he fought against — complicated stuff about money earned per record sold, the length of contractual obligations, and artists being treated as software — are now common across an increasingly merged industry; there has been a change in personnel at the top of Sony in America; and finally, he says with a satisfied leer.

“They gave me the best deal I’ve ever seen in my fucking life, which made it a much easier pill to swallow.”

Does he feel defeated? As if.

“I swear to God the business isn’t worth feeling that way about. I have principles but I don’t believe in empty gestures.”

Can he put a figure on the deal?

“No! What do you think my name is?”

He smirks.

“And I’m not gonna say what comes after that, it’s obvious.”

“It’s a song written by Toby Bourke with a couple of additional verses written by me. What I would like to say it’s that if you listen to the record in context of Toby’s part being my father and my part being me than you will guess what the record is about. And I would just like to say that I hope that it helps my father and anybody else who’s lost anybody recently that’s having trouble believing that they are still there for them.”

After opening with two nights at the Genting Arena in Birmingham George flew to Brazil to perform two dates at the Rock in Rio festival at the Maracanã Stadium. He played in front of a crowd of 170,000 packed into one of the world’s largest football stadiums and during the second concert he was joined on stage by Andrew Ridgeley. It was the last time that Wham! performed together on stage.