Pete Burns's last television interview, airing tonight, sees the singer opening up about his thoughts on dying, not long before he passed away last month.
Channel 5 documentary Pete Burns: The Last Interview has been quickly put together and features the last conversations Burns had on camera, as well as tributes from his husband Michael Simpson, Dead or Alive bandmates and friends.
Burns spoke about previously being close to death in hospital, saying: "It was a lovely feeling dying, I can remember being in the hospital, all wired up to tubes and thinking, if only you'd take these tubes out, it feels so nice, it felt so, it felt like being in a bath of velvet. It was such a nice feeling, everything felt so soft and floppy and I wanted to go."
He also shared his thoughts on the ageing process: "I'm not very comfortable with the idea, technically, of ageing, I'll never look forever young, but I'll look as best as I possibly can and I'll look surreal.
"I'm going to take the step in the next 10 years of surreality because I'll no longer look earthly. I don't wanna look like a 65-year-old geezer, you know, and I can't really see it happening."
Burns' husband Michael Simpson said of him: "It's a very surreal situation. I can't quite get my head around that Pete died a few weeks ago. It wasn't in the plan. It's early days, it's two weeks.
"I'm hoping he's somewhere, I don't know, on some kind of journey now, just loving every minute, you know, if legacy will go on."
(Pete Burns performing in 2012)
Friends including Pete Waterman, George Galloway and Boy George also paid tribute.
Boy George said of Pete: "I loved him as a kind of fellow weirdo. He's someone that I had a lot of admiration for."
Waterman added: "This is a friend; this is almost, almost, like a son. He had the most wicked tongue in the world, I mean he could kill you from 30 yards off, you know he really did. But he had the heart the size of Liverpool. I mean, he was the most generous and kind bloke I ever met, he was a real gentleman, and I don't use that word lightly, he really was, he was so sweet."
Pete's Celebrity Big Brother housemate George Galloway said of him: "I had never met any quite like him before, or for that matter, since and anybody who's met Pete Burns has never met anyone like him anyway. He said funnily enough, like I was like a father figure to him, and when he died it was a surprise to me to learn that he was only 5 years younger than me.
(George Galloway and Pete Burns on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006)
"I will remember Pete Burns as a man who, through 22 long days and nights, really made me laugh. I mean holding your sides, your stomach sore, laughs."
Toyah Wilcox added: "I think Pete was one of my very favourite types of human being, he was a butterfly in the hurricane, and I just love people who live their lives like that. I would have loved more conversations with Pete. I mean I never held back, I always told him I thought he was beautiful and great and exceptional and just so interesting, he made me want to turn the telly on."
Pete Burns: The Last Interview airs tonight (Tuesday November 8) at 10pm on Channel 5.
