Boy George was always "too uncomfortable" to ask for a picture with David Bowie.

The Culture Club frontman will be paying tribute to the Ziggy Stardust legend, who died aged 69 in January (16) after a short battle with cancer, at the U.K.'s Stand Up To Cancer televised event on Friday (21Oct16).

While he refused to reveal which Bowie track he and an 140-piece orchestra will be performing at the event, George recalled his meetings with the Life on Mars star during an interview on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday (19Oct16).

However, he admitted that while he met Bowie on numerous occasions, he never asked for a snap with the singer.

"I was always a fan - we had dinner together a few times but I was always a fan," he explained. "Funnily enough I never got a picture with him. It just wasn’t cool. You know, like I met him and I was like, ‘I can’t ask him!’

"There were no selfies when I met Bowie in 2005 - it was one of those things that I was too uncomfortable to go, ‘Oh can I have a picture?’ "

The 55-year-old is currently on tour with Culture Club and will be performing in Switzerland next Wednesday (26Oct16). While the group are still enjoying huge success, they didn't go down too well with the public when they first hit the industry.

"At first when we became punks people thought we were doing student rag week (fundraising events arranged by students) so they thought it was quite cute," he said. "And then when the tabloids gave it a name, we were punk rockers, then people wanted to punch us. I remember once getting kicked in the face on a bus and I was like bleeding, and nobody came to help me. People were just like, ‘Look at the way you’re dressed’ - and that was pretty much across the board in the 70s."

Despite his admission, George admits he looks back at every point in his career fondly - now that he can do so with hindsight.

"I think you kind of make sense of your life in hindsight, so you look back and things are never as awful as you thought they were," he smiled. "If I was to write my first book now, I’d probably write a very different book."