Boy George has accused Harry Styles of being "too scared" to play him in a Culture Club biopic

He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "They are looking at a kid called Yungblud. He is a big English sensation. He is quite young and he has been auditioning. There was talk of Harry Styles, but I think he ran. He was too scared.”

'Karma Chameleon' - named after Culture Club's 1983 hit song - will document Boy George's rise to fame. It had been due to start filming this year but the COVID-19 pandemic and casting issues have delayed it.

Boy George said: "I don’t want it to be like a fantasy of somebody else.

I feel like it should be honest and truthful as I am hilarious. I say tell the truth as the truth is far more interesting than things that are made up, you know."

Boy George has lived an eventful life and his four-month prison sentence in 2009 - for falsely imprisoning a male escort - is likely to feature in the biopic.

Speaking about it previously, he said: "I always maintained that jail would finish me off, but it didn’t.

“You somehow find the strength. It was a life-changing experience and I feel I came out of that situation with some wisdom and knowledge.

“I really don’t view that period in my life as negative… But I wouldn’t want to go back.”

The star admitted his “troubles” – which also included being sentenced to community service in 2006 after police in New York found cocaine in his home – were a valuable life lesson, but they also reminded him he hasn’t fully shaken off the “nihilistic attitude” of his youth, which he wants to hold on to.

He said: “I have always had a mistake in me, but that’s OK. As far as the troubles I had back in 2006 and 2009, of course they are things I’m not proud of.

“Yet at the same time they remind me that I hadn’t shaken off that nihilistic attitude of the past, nor would I ever want to.

“And every mistake is a positive life lesson … It really is.”