Sometimes a song hits you not because it’s about you, but because it feels like it saw you. Or at least someone like you. Or someone you once aspired to be in a club bathroom at 2am in 1999.

Cue Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”

Officially, it’s about a fallen monarch. A king who once ruled the world, commanded seas, and made choirs sing his name — now wandering through the ruins of his own myth. Chris Martin has said it’s not about any one person. Just power, ego, loss, guilt, redemption. You know, light stuff.

But I heard it again recently thunder rolling in, a dog hiding under the couch, rain tapping on the shutters, and I suddenly thought: Could this song be about… Boy George?

Stay with me. And, let’s ponder some key lyrics.


“I used to rule the world…”

Boy George did. In the 1980s, he was everywhere. Bold, bright, subversive, brilliant. A cultural monarch in eyeliner and oversized hats. He was glitter before glitter was ironic. He didn’t just sing.  He glowed.

But kingdoms fall. Tabloids circle. Addictions speak louder than even the best bridge of a pop chorus.

And suddenly, the man who made us all want to “Karma Chameleon” our way through life was… exiled. Mocked. Locked away. The choir no longer sang his name. The world moved on, or thought it had.

I actually would walk past him as he did community service in Tribeca.

“People couldn’t believe what I’d become…”

Coldplay sings this as a lament, but for Boy George? It was also a revelation. He’s still here. Still flamboyant. Still sharp. Still evolving.

And isn’t that the twist? The fallen king gets back up.  Not to reclaim the throne, but to repaint it. In neon.


“Viva La Vida” — Long Live Life

Frida Kahlo painted that phrase shortly before her death. She was no stranger to pain, transformation, or staring the world in the face with unblinking honesty. It’s a defiant whisper: I’m still here. I still choose life.

Boy George? He lives that motto. Reinvented as a DJ, a writer, a judge on “The Voice,” a forever-icon in glitter-soaked eyeliner. He is still choosing life. Loudly. Flashily. And with a hat no one else could pull off.

So, what’s my overall take?

“Viva La Vida” may not have been written about Boy George. But it could have been.

Because here’s the truth: The world loves to build idols and then knock them off their pedestal. But some people don’t stay down. They get back up covered in rhinestones and humming their own soundtrack.

We’ve all had “I used to rule the world” moments. We’ve all wandered our own emotional ruins. And, if we’re lucky (and scrappy and a little fabulous), we find a way to say:

Long live life. Long live me. Even in the rain. Even after the fall.

I used to rule the world…