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Pete Burns obituary

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Cross-dressing singer who topped the British charts in and later resurfaced, surgically transformed, on reality television

Gay marriage does not perform - men are just too predatory, says Pete Burns

When he flashed his engagement ring on the sofa with Richard and Judy, pop star Pete Burns told of his happiness at the prospect of becoming the latest celebrity to marry his male partner.

But now, just ten months after the big day, the singer has split from Michael Simpson, saying civil partnerships do not work and that he was happier being married to a woman.

Burns, 49, who was wed to stylist Lynne Corlett for 28 years, said gay relationships were a "commercial break" compared with the "full movie" of marriage.

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Pete Burns dresses as a geisha teen on his wedding morning with Michael Simpson. But he says that queer marriages do not labor because men are too predatory

He also claimed there were too much "promiscuity" in the gay people for civil partnerships to thrive.

Burns followed in the footsteps of Sir Elton John and Petty Britain star Matt Lucas in using the novel civil partnership laws to announce his public devotion to his lover.

He dressed as a geisha girl in a kimono fo

Pete Burns: An Unacknowledged Scouse Icon

In honour of LGBT+ History Month, BA International Relations student, Francesca Foulkes talks about Pete Burns, an often-overlooked queer Scouser whose story highlights the ongoing marginalisation of LGBT+ and gender non-conforming people, especially in the music industry.

Born on the Wirral in , Pete Burns dropped out of school at age 14 because of the discrimination he faced for his unconventionally androgynous appearance. He then began working in a record shop and formed his first band, which by had been renamed Dead or Alive. In , their groundbreaking solo “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” hit No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, catapulting Dead or Alive and Burns to fame. In his personal animation, Burns married Lynne Corlett in , but they divorced amicably in and Burns entered a civil partnership with Michael Simpson in Although he was frequently questioned about his gender self, Burns reiterated that he was a cisgender man but loosely categorised his sexuality as “queer”, stating that “There’s got to be a completely unlike t

Pete Burns opens up about his career and being “marginalised” to an LGBTQ+ audience in an archive interview obtained by Retro Pop. 

Speaking in from PWL Studios on London’s Southbank, the Expired or Alive frontman looks endorse over his life and career and opens up on his later years. 

Despite topping the charts with their single You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), in later years the hitmaker admits the music industry saw his records as “gay music” and wouldn’t promote him in the mainstream. 

“When my ‘Greatest Hits’ came out in , my document company had greatly changed,” he says. “Now my ‘Greatest Hits’, if I decided to perform it, would be huge, and they said, ‘We’re not going to advertise this in any of the ordinary, straight papers, we’re going to put it in gay news, and we’ll fly post in Compton Road, because it’s gay music.’ 

“Then, I thought, ‘Oh my God, things haven’t changed’.” 

He adds: “In America, it was released and think what the Americans said? ‘We’re only going to fly send it in the district.’ 

“So, I was marginalised to a lgbtq+ audience, a