{"id":48214,"date":"2025-09-07T00:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T00:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/48214\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T00:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T00:19:10","slug":"nicole-kidman-drops-65000-a-month-to-live-in-boy-georges-hampstead-mansion-where-us-musician-died-of-drug-overdose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/48214\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicole Kidman drops \u00a365,000 a month to live in Boy George’s Hampstead mansion where US musician died of drug overdose"},"content":{"rendered":"

By KATIE HIND, CONSULTANT EDITOR SHOWBUSINESS<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published: 18:06 EDT, 6 September 2025 | Updated: 18:13 EDT, 6 September 2025 <\/p>\n

It’s\u00a0the imposing mansion in leafy Hampstead where an American musician who had jetted into London to work with Boy George<\/a> died of a drug overdose.<\/p>\n

Michael Rudetsky, 27, was found slumped in the living room at George’s ‘gothic pile’ in 1986 \u2013 and it later emerged he had taken heroin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His death hit the Culture Club singer, who was fighting a drug habit at the same time, hard.<\/p>\n

But the mansion’s controversial past doesn’t seem to have put off Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman<\/a> from living there.<\/p>\n

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that she is renting it while in London to film her latest movie Practical Magic 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She moved in recently and will stay through filming at Warner Bros studios in Hertfordshire and Worcester Park in Surrey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it will cost Ms Kidman, 58, around \u00a365,000 a month to live in the Grade II-listed home Boy George bought 40 years ago after his band’s\u00a0hit Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?<\/p>\n

A source said: ‘If you put aside what must’ve gone on in that house over the years, it is stunning, in a beautiful location and it has lots of space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"US-Australian <\/p>\n

US-Australian actress Nicole Kidman is renting\u00a0Boy George’s Hampstead mansion while filming at Warner Bros studios in Hertfordshire and Worcester Park in Surrey<\/p>\n

\"Tt <\/p>\n

Tt will cost Ms Kidman, 58, around \u00a365,000 a month to live in the Grade II-listed home Boy George bought 40 years ago after his band’s hit Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In his memoir Straight, George writes how his house \u2013 which he calls the ‘gothic pile’ \u2013 has been a marker of his success<\/p>\n

\u00a0‘It’s made for a Hollywood star. It’s close to Hampstead Heath, which is a draw for stars used to living in America.’<\/p>\n

The property boasts five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a cinema and a roof terrace. It also has a meditation room.<\/p>\n

Despite it holding bad memories for him, Boy George, 64 \u2013 real name George O’Dowd \u2013 continued to live in the house until 2022 when he put it up for sale for \u00a317million.<\/p>\n

Culture Club founding member Jon Moss tried to stop him from selling his home amid a financial battle at the High Court following his expulsion from the band.<\/p>\n

Mr Moss’s lawyer revealed his client had applied for a ‘limited freezing injunction’ after discovering the singer was seeking to sell the property.<\/p>\n

Mr Moss ‘considered that there was a risk he would dissipate his assets’, said his lawyer Mr Weisselberg, and the house was later taken off the market, to be rented out instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mansion was built in 1868 for engineer and developer Edward Gotto, who added wings on either side of the property.<\/p>\n

Over the subsequent decades, the house was subdivided into several different properties.<\/p>\n

In 2015, singer Sam Smith bought the house next door, later selling it to George, who began an ambitious three-year renovation project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The properties were brought together to form one large house, and the footprint expanded with a huge kitchen breakfast room leading into the garden.<\/p>\n

George clashed with Camden Council over plans for a glazed extension and to remove trees to bring in more light to the property.<\/p>\n

In his memoir Straight, George writes how his house \u2013 which he calls the ‘gothic pile’ \u2013 has been a marker of his success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I’ve kept my house in Hampstead and I live very comfortably,’ he wrote. ‘I had to laugh when Tracy Emin walked in and said, ‘I’m glad to see it didn’t all go up your nose.’<\/p>\n

The property featured on an episode of the Channel 4 series Selling Super Houses in 2023.<\/p>\n

Share or comment on this article:
\n Nicole Kidman drops \u00a365,000 a month to live in Boy George’s Hampstead mansion where US musician died of drug overdose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By KATIE HIND, CONSULTANT EDITOR SHOWBUSINESS Published: 18:06 EDT, 6 September 2025 | Updated: 18:13 EDT, 6 September…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[23823,118,18,117,19,17,130,10420,438],"class_list":{"0":"post-48214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-boy-george","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-nicole-kidman","16":"tag-tvshowbiz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}