Nicole Kidman has snapped up a luxe London pad while she films Practical Magic 2 – but it can be revealed the home hides a sinister secret.
Nicole, 58 – is living in a grade-II listed mansion owned by Culture Club star Boy George – shelling out £65,000 (around $AUD133k) a month in rent while she’s filming the sequel to the hit 1998 drama alongside Sandra Bullock.
Boy George purchased the Hampstead mansion in 1985 after his band’s hit song ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?’ was released.
It may have a strong celebrity backstory, but the home also has a dark past.
In 1986, American musician Michael Rudetsky was found dead in the living room of the house after taking heroin during a visit to his friend Boy George.
”I was almost suicidal when I found out,” Boy George would later tell Rolling Stone.
”As far as I was concerned, that was the end of my complete existence. It wouldn’t have been bad if it had happened in a hotel, but it was in my house. I really just wanted to jump out of the window.”
Sharing an insight into what happened on the night of Michael’s death, Boy George told Rolling Stone he thought his friend was “fine” and “just didn’t think anything was going to happen”.
His certainty led the star to leave his friend unattended to go out partying, but when he returned home, things had taken a dramatic turn.
”Michael Rudetsky was laying roughly four feet inside the door [of the sitting room], face down, his legs crossed…. I leant over and I grabbed his arm, his left arm and pulled him,” the star later told a coroner’s inquest into the death.
“As I pulled him up he turned over and I realised he was cold and I just let go…. I knew he was dead.”
The coroner concluded that Michael had died by “misadventure”, but the parents of Michael filed a $44 million lawsuit accusing Boy George of ”wanton criminal conduct, negligence, recklessness and carelessness.”
While the case was eventually dismissed, it kept George under intense scrutiny for more than a year – with the ordeal becoming a catalyst for the star to seek help for addiction issues.
Despite the home’s dark past, it is a stunning property which offers luxurious living for Hollywood star Nicole.
“If you put aside what must’ve gone on in that house over the years, it is stunning, in a beautiful location and it has lots of space,” a source told the Daily Mail.
“It’s made for a Hollywood star. It’s close to Hampstead Heath, which is a draw for stars used to living in America.”
Indeed, in his memoir Straight, Boy George wrote about how his ‘Gothic Pile’ was a marker of success for him.
“I’ve kept my house in Hampstead and I live very comfortably,” he wrote.
“I had to laugh when Tracy Emin walked in and said, ‘I’m glad to see it didn’t all go up your nose.'”
Sitting on a quarter of an acre overlooking Hampstead Heath. the house features five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a meditation centre, a roof terrace and a cinema.
The semi-detached house makes up the central part of a Grade II listed building that was built around 1868 and features landscaped gardens at the front and the back of the property.
It was originally built by 1868 by engineer and developer Edward Gotto, who later added wings to either side of the property. The property was later subdivided into several houses.
In 2015, singer Sam Smith bought the house next door to Boy George and later sold it to Culture Club singer who spent the next three years combining the properties into one large house.
Boy George put the house on the market in 2022 for $32 million but later decided to rent it out instead and now living in nearby Hackney.
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