George Michael’s cousin Andros Georgiou has said he suspects the singer died of an accidental drugs overdose.
Georgiou, who toured with Michael, said the musician started taking “hard drugs” again towards the end of his life but insisted his death was not a suicide.
The 53-year-old was found dead at his Oxfordshire home in Goring-on-Thames on Christmas Day.
The cause of Michael’s death continues to be unclear after police said a post-mortem examination proved “inconclusive” and the results of further tests have yet to be released.
His death is being treated as unexplained but not suspicious.
“Hard drugs had been back in his life,” Georgiou told BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show.
“I just think he took too much of something, mixed with antidepressants and other drugs he was on - with alcohol. I think his heart just stopped beating.“
He said Michael had been addicted to crack cocaine in the past and described it as one of his “favourite drugs”.
“I believe he had suicidal thoughts, because his mental health was all over the place. But I don't believe this was suicide,” Georgiou added.
Georgiou, a former music producer who toured with Michael until they fell out in the late 1990s, said he wanted to “get to the truth of what happened” and who “gave it [the drugs] to him”.
Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in East Finchley in north London in the early 1960s, Michael formed the era-defining pop duo Wham! and quickly became one of Britain’s biggest pop stars of the 1980s.
A representative for Michael did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
