A family row has broken out over an auction of George Michael memorabilia taking place on Thursday.
The guitar the singer-songwriter performed with in the Faith music video is one of several items being auctioned by Sworders from the collection of Siobhan Bailey, Michael’s long-time personal assistant.
Siobhan died in 2014 and the items are being sold by her estranged husband Ian Belcher, who inherited them after her death.
Gerard Bailey, Siobhan’s brother, told the BBC she “would be horrified at the prospect of the auction being held in her name and that her personal, cherished possessions are being sold off to the highest bidder”. Both Sworders and Belcher declined to comment.
Sworders describes the 32 lots as a “remarkable group of memorabilia from the collection of Siobhan Bailey, George Michael’s long-time personal assistant and trusted confidante”.
Michael grew up in Hertfordshire and shot to fame alongside Andrew Ridgeley in pop duo Wham! He went on to enjoy solo success with hits such as Faith, Careless Whisper, Father Figure, Outside and Fastlove. He died in 2016.
‘Dishonourable and shameful’
Siobhan was in the process of divorcing Belcher when she died, but was legally still married to him. She did not leave a will.
Her brother claimed she had started to draw up a will shortly before she died, which would have left the items to her nieces and nephews, but it was not registered.
There is no suggestion that Belcher does not have the right to sell the items, because her estate legally passed to him when she died.
Bailey said if his sister had lived a few weeks longer, the items would not have passed to Belcher because he would not have been considered her next of kin.
In a letter to the auction house seen by the BBC, Bailey said the rest of the family considers the auction a “breach of [Siobhan’s] privacy”, adding that the use of her name is “disingenuous” and
“wholly unethical”.
He told the auction house that Belcher’s “misuse of my sister’s name” is “frankly dishonourable”, and profiteering from the items was “egregiously shameful”.
Bailey has asked that the auction should not go ahead, or, if it does, that it be in Belcher’s name rather than Siobhan’s.
Bailey began working as Michael’s personal assistant in 1984, joining him in the year Wham! had their first number-one hit with Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.
She remained his PA for 20 years, and her brother told BBC News she avoided the limelight and guarded the pop star’s privacy, despite the attention of tabloid journalists hoping for stories.
