"DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME? THE Nº1 HIT THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE A SINGLE"

September 3rd, 1982: Culture Club's "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" was released in the UK. The critics were not kind; Smash Hits calls it "weak, watered-down fourth division reggae." The song would be No. 1 for three weeks in the UK in late 1982 and become an international smash, peaking at Nº11 in over a dozen countries (Nº2 in the US).

In 2007, Boy George said that the song was "not just about Culture Club's drummer Jon Moss, my boyfriend at the time. It was about all the guys I dated at that time in my life." Apparently, George and Moss had had an affair for about six years that was kept hidden from the public, and George often felt hurt and emotional. At first, Boy George didn't want this released as a single because it was such a personal song for him. Boy George told Q magazine in September 2008: "Our first two singles failed. That single was our last chance. But I threatened to leave if the label released it. I didn't think it was us; it wasn't club music. It wouldn't stand up to Spandau Ballet. But I was wrong. It was so personal in a way that our other songs weren't. It was about Jon. All the songs were about him, but they were more ambiguous."

The  'Is it a boy, is it a girl' headlines the day after their appearance at a TV programme in the UK gave the song all the publicity it needed and it zoomed to the top of the charts. Were Boy George's looks decisive in their success? It's arguable. All of the members of the band were (still are, actually) great musicians. 

Boy George said in 1983: "There's a line from 'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?' that says, 'Everything's not what you see,' which is basically what I believe. It's kind of boring when things are just what they are."