Alexander McQueen’s ex-partner throws a disturbing light on the 'hangers-on' who lionised him, but who never truly knew him

Fashion is a lonely, shallow world full of 'party friends'. And not many said, 'There’s someone who needs looking after...'

The news of his death had barely broken when the tributes started pouring in. Press statements were issued, each more angst-ridden than the last.

Victoria Beckham mourned the loss of a ‘master of fashion, creative genius, an inspiration...a true great’.



A ‘shocked’ Myleene Klass described the day as ‘tragic’, and pointed out that she had ‘only just started out as a designer’ herself. Cheryl Cole’s ‘heart went out to Alexander’s family’.

Happy: Alexander McQueen, right, George Forsyth and his sister Belle at a 2001 wedding

Such tributes were no doubt delivered with the best intentions, but the sound of the stars’ publicity machines whirring must have led to yet more grief and dismay for McQueen’s family and his few true friends – who did not know him as Alexander.

McQueen was the ‘enfant terrible’ of fashion – a designer of breathtaking talent and craft.

For close to two decades he enthralled audiences. He was ‘Alexander the Great’, ‘the hooligan of fashion’.



He partied with supermodels, took drugs, and made millions. He made women look great and lived a life that was, at times, fabulous.

But his real name was Lee.

It was Lee McQueen who, last Thursday, committed suicide by hanging himself in his Mayfair home.



It was 40-year-old Lee who looked at his future and saw no hope in the dazzling world that lauded Alexander. And it is Lee who has all but disappeared beneath an avalanche of eulogies for Alexander – many from celebrities who never even met him.

It is something that matters terribly to the man who once shared his life, McQueen’s former ‘husband’, George Forsyth.

Double life: Lee the private man with his dog Juice, left, and Alexander the idol with Kate Moss



Their ‘marriage’ may have imploded but they forged a deep friendship in its aftermath. For the past decade they remained an intrinsic part of each other’s lives.

George has watched every bit of the coverage of McQueen’s suicide without once glimpsing the man he knew and loved. Or the reality of the world in which he lived.

Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, George, 33, explains: ‘It’s been fashion, fashion, fashion...but what about him as a person? That’s the real loss and the real waste. It’s not that he made women look great, it’s that he was a beautiful bloke, a really beautiful person with a big heart.



'The truth is, the fashion world is the loneliest place on the face of the planet. It’s a shallow world full of party people and party “friends”. Lee knew that.’

In the days since his death there has been much speculation over why a man as talented and successful as McQueen should have committed suicide.

The death of his mother, Joyce, just one week earlier has been cited as a trigger.



Certainly the designer was devastated by the event – taking to his bed on hearing the news. He killed himself the day before her funeral.

The suicide of his mentor and close friend Isabella Blow three years ago, the pressure of his forthcoming collection – due to be unveiled in Paris in March – a failed romance and dark mutterings of a recent return to the heavy drug use of previous years have all emerged as contributory factors.

Grief: McQueen was devastated by the death of his mother

George is aware of all of these notions. Yet he remains unconvinced. ‘Lee was very close to his mum but I wouldn’t equate her death with Lee doing this. We’d been together for so long and I never saw that kind of depression from him.



'Everybody deals with stuff in different ways. Lee would retreat a bit, go into himself sometimes. But I would have thought Lee was strong enough to cope with it. He worked incredibly hard. I know he felt the pressure of the business but this doesn’t make sense to me.’

Reluctant to speculate, he says: ‘I’ll be honest, it totally baffles me. Nobody expected it. Nobody.’

From the outside, the world in which McQueen existed appeared glittering, crowded and dazzling. Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Sadie Frost, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker...the list of models and celebrities vying for a place on his arm or a front-row seat at his shows goes on and on.



'Alexander the Great': McQueen enthralled audiences for nearly two decades

Yet the word which most frequently recurs as George tries to make sense of Lee’s actions is ‘lonely’.

George says: ‘I’ve lain awake at night wondering how he could have got to a point where he was that low. I’ve paced my flat thinking could I have done something or said something?



'I understand now why people say suicide is the most selfish thing, it was such a stupid thing for him to do. Nobody can ever really know what he was feeling at that final moment, when he felt so low, so down...so lonely.’

He explains: ‘The fashion world is full of hangers-on and liggers everywhere. You can spot them a mile off. They’re so paper-thin you can see right through them.



'There’s no substance. It’s a lonely place. Lee was sharp as a pin. He’d spot it. He explained it all to me, that he had this public persona, the bad boy of fashion.



'There was Lee at home and Alexander McQueen the outrageous nutter in public. He played up to it. He laughs about it.’

Pausing, George corrects himself and says: ‘Laughed about it.’



The news is, he admits, ‘just sinking in’, as he casts his mind back to the beginning of their relationship and to the first intense two-and-a-half years.

They met 11 years ago in a North London bar. George, the son of an architect and magistrate, was working in television and video production.



He admits: ‘I had no concept or interest in fashion really. We just got on really well from the very beginning. He was an East End boy, I’m a North London Jew. We could talk for hours. We courted for four weeks then, about five weeks after we met we went out one Saturday night and I just didn’t go home, ever.’

It was only after George, then 22, had moved in with McQueen that the designer really introduced him to ‘his world’.



He recalls: ‘We went to a Vogue party together. I had no idea where we were going or what it was. I was wearing ripped jeans and trainers. It was somewhere on the Strand.

'I remember walking up the road and seeing all these flashes of the paparazzi cameras and this huge crowd of people. They were shouting “Alexander! Alexander!” It was full on.

‘There was all the best drink, beautiful people...I remember him bringing over Naomi Campbell and Isabella Blow and Kate Moss and wanting to introduce me to them.

'That’s when it really hit me how well-known he was. Until then I’d only met Lee, but there he was Alexander McQueen.’

Genius: George grew to resent the 'hangers-on and liggers' that permeate the fashion world

These days, George’s view of that world may have changed but, back then, he launched headlong into an exciting, hedonistic whirl.

‘We went to all these mad parties. There were parties every night. There would be ice sculptures and expensive champagne and people jumping into swimming pools fully dressed, and drugs.



'Not quite the Hollywood cliche of mountains of coke spread about, but there were a few parties where it was being passed around on silver salvers.

‘The hedonistic parties would go on and on. People had a lot of money so they never had to stop. It was a very incestuous, cliquey world. There was Sadie Frost, Kate Moss and Davinia Taylor in a clique.



'They were hard-core – staying up for days, either drinking or taking drugs, in some cases both. The drugs magnified everything. The good times were really, really good.’

Ultimately the bad times would be every bit as exaggerated. But, six months or so into their romance, a giddy night out at the Groucho Club led to a proposal of marriage.

It happened over dinner with Kate Moss and Annabelle Neilson, ex-wife of Nat Rothschild, the financier and heir to Lord Rothschild who is a close friend of Peter Mandelson.

George recalls: ‘It was very casual. Lee said, “Would you marry me?” I said, “Yeah.” And it turned into, “Will you marry me?” I said, “Yeah” again.



Tributes: Model Olivia Inge leaves a card at Alexander McQueen's Mayfair home

Annabelle said, “I’ll organise it. I’ll be your bridesmaid Lee.” And Kate said, “I’ll be yours George.” We decided to do it in Ibiza in August.

‘It did mean something to us. It was important. What Lee and I had wasn’t some stupid thing. But we thought it would be something small, a blessing in some derelict church or something. It didn’t turn out that way.’

Instead a morning swim in the pool of their rented villa was interrupted by the arrival of two convertible Bentleys – one for Lee and Annabelle, one for George and Kate – and the two women informing them: ‘You’re getting married today.’

Not only had Annabelle arranged the ceremony as promised, she had decided it would be all the more memorable if it came as a surprise.

George recalls: ‘We drove through San Antonio to the harbour and there was this three-storey yacht hired by one of Lee’s friends. Annabelle had had two rings made by Lee’s jeweller friend Shaun [Leane] and engraved with ‘George & Lee’ all around the inside and set with diamonds.



'The yacht was full of celebrities – Sadie and Jude Law, Patsy Kensit, Meg Gallagher – Noel got off to party somewhere else before it set sail.

‘It was like £20,000 on champagne, and some weird new-age priest who spoke very bad English. There was lobster. Everyone was eating and drinking and taking drugs.



'There were no family. It was all party people. I was nervous, I was sitting down at one point and Jude Law came up to me and said, “You don’t know anyone here do you?” And I didn’t. But afterwards Lee and I went down to the front, under the moonlight. It was a perfect night. It was romantic.’

Although the wedding was not legally recognised, the couple regarded themselves as married.

Lee was, George recalls, given to grand romantic gestures. On Valentine’s Day he would send not a dozen, but 500 red roses to the television studio where George was working at the time.

George adds: ‘During the time I was with him he became more and more successful and wealthy. Once we were at home watching a nature programme on Africa. Lee turned to me and said, “Fancy going to Africa?”.



'Just 48 hours later we were on a plane. I’d told him that as a kid I’d always liked going upstairs into the bubble bit of a Boeing – he’d remembered that and booked the entire floor.

‘After about two days in Africa we decided we were bored. He phoned Naomi Campbell, who has a place on the coast, and we chartered a small plane and flew out to hers. We spent three days partying and taking drugs there – it was New Year.

‘Naomi didn’t do any coke even though she was surrounded by people who were. She has a reputation, but of all the people I met she was actually very controlled.’



Control was, by George’s own admission, in short supply. He remembers: ‘Once we’d been up all night and were both off our faces on coke when Lee decided we’d go to one of Elton John’s tea parties at the Ivy. We turned up and it was packed to the brim with celebrities – Joan Collins, Charles Saatchi, Victoria Beckham, George Michael...and there’s us gurning.

‘Lee said, “Do you think anyone can tell we’re on drugs?” I just nodded.’

The reality was that the scene was awash with cocaine and more. ‘Everyone did it,’ George says. ‘Models use heroin to stay thin for God’s sake. It was no secret.’

Times and dates are hazy as George recalls the intense months of his relationship with Lee, and perhaps little wonder.



He recalls a trip in a private jet to Paris for drinks, on to Spain for dinner then Amsterdam for a night of clubbing.



Celebrity: George says Naomi Campbell was one of the most controlled people he met in the fashion world

He remembers going to the Four Seasons in Paris during one of McQueen’s shows when the designer bought one of the hotel’s vast Swarovksi chandeliers for £30,000.

Together they dismantled it and hung each crystal on their Christmas tree at home. Then there was a flying visit to New York where he and Lee parted with £125,000 in an afternoon’s shopping – pointing to Andy Warhol prints and buying them like tourists picking up postcards.

But for all his success, money and fame wasn’t what brought Lee pleasure. Nor have they provided George with his most treasured memories.

‘Where we lived, you could climb up on to the roof and we used to do that at night and lie on benches just looking up at the stars and talking for hours.



'He was so intensely creative and interesting. Lee could talk about anything he was so artistic, he knew so much.’

Looking back, George, who is now an artist, credits those conversations with Lee for giving him the courage to take the degree in Fine Art which he ultimately studied at Central St Martins – McQueen’s own alma mater.

George introduced Lee to his parents, Alan and Sandra, at their home in North London. Lee, in turn, took George to visit his parents in Essex. Lee was one of six children and George, the middle of three, recalls the McQueens as ‘welcoming and warm’.

George says some of their happiest times were spent at his parents’ holiday cottage in Norfolk, or driving down to Brighton to walk their dogs, Minter and Juice, along the seafront.

In December 2000, Lee sold 51per cent of his business to Gucci – leaving Givenchy where he had been designing – and setting up a label of his own.



The couple celebrated the multi-million-pound deal ‘at home with a bag of chips and a couple of Bacardi Breezers’.

‘We enjoyed the partying,’ George says, ‘but we saw it for what it was. We would go to parties and meet up with people there but leave just the two of us.’

It is a telling comment, for the vast majority of people in Lee’s life were, according to George, ‘party friends’.

He says: ‘Everybody wanted to be with Lee. He was the hottest ticket in town. But I noticed that in the fashion world there were very few people who said, “There’s someone who needs looking after.” There were a few people there who were genuinely good friends and who genuinely loved Lee.

‘Issy Blow, who discovered him, was one. Annabelle, Shaun and Naomi were true, true friends too. But I’ve got no time for Kate Moss. To be honest, I found Kate rude – and Sadie Frost too.



'After Lee and I split up, I saw Kate in the street and shouted out to her.



'She gave me a dirty look and just blanked me. This was my bridesmaid remember. It’s a shallow world. Ultimately I felt I wasn’t really part of it.

'Lee was so successful. In every relationship you need balance and I couldn’t keep up. I left and, you know, I was quite happy to go back to scratching around for the mortgage.’

Lee and George didn’t speak for 18 months following their split in 2001 but they were reconciled and managed, George says, to salvage a friendship.

Today George is thankful for that at least. ‘I got to know Lee McQueen, not Alexander all those years ago. Now everyone’s talking about Alexander McQueen the fashion genius. I want people to know that we lost Lee McQueen the person too, and he was just as special.’