Ed Sheeran denies gay icon George Michael Christmas number one
(Photos: Getty)
Ed Sheeran has snatched the coveted Christmas number one single, disappointing George Michael fans.
According to the Official Charts Company, the Ed Sheeran song ‘Perfect’ topped the Christmas chart with 45,000 sales this week and over six million streams.
A campaign had been launched to give singer George Michael his first Christmas number one following his death last year.
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Despite the band’s classic holiday track ‘Last Christmas’ being a firm holiday staple, it never topped the charts while George Michael was alive.
The campaign, which used the hashtags #TeamGeorge and #LastXmas4XmasNo1, worked to put the Wham! classic ‘Last Christmas’ on the top of the much contested Christmas charts.
(Photo: @LastChristmasGM / Twitter)
Betting odds were slashed in the run up to the release of the chart, with many bookmakers offering 4/6 odds that George Michael would get his Christmas number one.
‘Last Christmas’ finished third, beating prominent Christmas classic Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ into fourth.
‘The Fairytale of New York’, perhaps the most controversial of the Christmas songs, entered the top ten chart for the first time in a decade.
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George Michael passed away on Christmas day last year aged 53. His death was later found to be from natural causes.
Michael’s former Wham! co-star Andrew Ridgeley backed the campaign to get the singer his first Christmas number one.
The runner-up to the Christmas number one was Eminem, who recently made headlines by claiming he used gay dating app Grindr
He later retracted this statement and said it was a joke.
George Michael was found dead at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, age 53, on Christmas Day last year.
Hundreds of tributes were placed outside his home following the news of his death, many of which still remain outside of his north London mansion.
(Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
These tributes have caused significant controversy within the local area, with several of Michael’s former neighbours protesting the shrine.
