You have to hand it to the cunning of the solicitors here. In an amazing piece of ‘creative’ legal work, Boy George was asked for his ‘autograph’ while he was behind the decks at Manchester’s Essential Club last weekend… only to be told he had in fact just signed some legal documents handed to him by a lawyer in rave disguise!

Only when he had returned his signature to the enthusiastic and convincingly sweaty ‘fan’ was told he’d actually just been served with a statutory declaration, meaning he’d just agreed to pay £36,000 to an American club promoter who has sued him, or declare himself bankrupt.

The promoter in question was behind an event called Club GAY USA, but says the whole venture collapsed when George pulled out of the gig at the last minute. She was awarded the £36k damages by UK courts but George had failed to pay up by the required deadline, causing her solicitors to come up with the autograph sting.

A spokesperson for the solicitors is reported as saying, “He was gobsmacked. As soon as we said, ‘You have been served with a statutory declaration, he went, ‘Oh!’ He could not understand it. He was gobsmacked. We have all got a job to do, one way or another, and this was the best way to do it. We had to get him at his weak moment.”

George hasn’t commented yet, but this comes only days after the DJ/singer was charged over allegations by a male escort that George chained him up at his Shoreditch home, and follows his infamous 5-day community service sentence to sweep the streets in New York.

Certainly all other DJs better watch out – there could be a lawyer lurking amongst the ravers up the front of your DJ booth, pen in hand, waiting to pounce!