Frontman of ’80s band Dead or Alive, Pete Burns has died aged 57 following a cardiac arrest last night.
Pete Burns is most famous for the single ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’ which was released in 1980, and was on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 – coming in fifth.
A statement released by his partner, Michael Simpson, his ex-wife, Lynne Corlett, and his manager and former band member, Steve Coy, said “All of his family and friends are devastated by the loss of our special star. He was a true visionary, a beautiful talented soul and will be missed by all those who loved and appreciated everything he was and all of the wonderful memories he has left us with. We have no more words, we will make a further statement when we have had a chance to come to terms with our devastating loss. He will live forever in our memories.”
According to the Mirror, the Liverpudlian-born singer joked about his death during a television interview just weeks before he died. He was most recently in the news after speaking about his plastic surgery fixation and how it lead to several health scares in his past. Earlier this year Burns admitted he has endured more 300 procedures to fix botched surgery on his face, which left him depressed and fighting for his life.
“I realised [in the ’80s] I was going to be a visual entity and that I had to look good. I had a broken nose. In the punk days somebody head butted me in Liverpool and it went over to one side,” Burns explained in The Daily Mail in Sept. 2016. [Via Billboard] “The number of surgeries I’ve has is probably 300. I hope when I’m 80 and I get to heaven God doesn’t recognize me.”
The star went under the knife in the quest for the perfect nose, when he woke up “covered in blood” he knew that things had gone wrong. The reconstructive surgery that followed was the first of dozens of corrective treatments, including four nose jobs, two sets of cheekbone implants and lip plumping. But his lip augmentation also went badly wrong – and the filler injected into his pout began spreading all over his face. He said: “I started to develop holes in my skin and if I so much as touched my face there would be an audible hissing and out onto the mirror would vomit this yellow fluid.”
Pete Burns’ manager wrote a statement on Twitter, confirming the star’s death. “It is with the greatest sadness that we have to break the tragic news that our beloved Pete Burns (Dead or Alive) died suddenly yesterday of a massive cardiac arrest.”
Friends of the singer Boy George and Davina McCall have paid tribute to the star, saying “Tearful about the passing of Pete Burns, he was one of our great true eccentrics and such a big part of my life! Wow. Hard to believe!” – Boy George.
“So so sad to hear about Pete Burns. We partied hard in the 90s. RIP Pete,” Davina said.
