George Michael: Americans find me laughable

George Michael has admitted that he has an unfavourable reputation in the States - but insists he is not bothered by the criticism.

The singer - famed for hits such as 'Faith' and 'Spinning The Wheel' - put his US troubles down to his infamous 1998 "incident" with an undercover cop in a public toilet in Beverly Hills.

He believes that a legal dispute with record label Sony in 1993, plus a 2002 single criticising the Bush administration, only served to add to his woes.

Michael explained: "I've actually been a bit of a laughable name since the early nineties. Since I took on Sony, everything went wrong there. From that point on, I didn't have the radio and I had some pretty bad publicity.

"The publicity in the last 18 months hasn't helped, and so I think I'm a bit of a joke. But it didn't really bother me anyway."