George Michael's sister who will be buried next to his grave had become a recluse after his death: Sources
Legendary late singer George Michael’s sister, Melanie Panayiotou, passed away this Christmas day, December 25, exactly three years after her brother. And reports are that she will be buried beside her brother’s unmarked grave.
Sources say that she will rest in Highgate Cemetary burial grounds, next to her brother. The cemetery lies in north London and also has the grave of the mother of the siblings. The 59-year old sister of the iconic musician will get to have her own headstone, unlike her brother, according to a report by Daily Mail.
Panayiotou was unmarried without any children, and shared the GBP98-million fortune with her older sister, Yioda, that the singer left in his will for his siblings.
Her body was discovered at her home in Hampstead, north London, which also once belonged to George Michael. The police have not uncovered the cause of Panayiotou's death but that doesn't also mean that they are considering it to be anything suspicious.
Her personal sources reveal that following her brother's death, Panayiotou had become a recluse and withdrawn herself from family and friends in her last years.
When Michael was active in his music career, she would accompany him on his travels around the world and was a regular at the London nightclub scene in the early 1990s.
When their mother died in 1997, Panayiotou, like Michael, was also devastated at the loss. Later, when Michael was battling drug and alcohol abuse, she helped him fight and recover. However, she didn't succeed much, since Michael died an untimely death, which also broke her.
The reason for keeping Michael's grave unmarked, as sources also reveal, is primarily to refrain fans from turning it into a shrine and causing chaos.
Even family members of Michael and his sister declared that their son does not have a gravestone even three years after his death and they want it to be that way, lest it becomes a "Mecca" for his fans and becomes complicated.
Otherwise, when they visit the plot to pay their respect to their daughter, they would have to walk through obsessive fans and wade through growing tributes.
When Michael passed away, the family had to deal with crowds of fans right outside his home at Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. They would leave flowers, candles, and memorabilia, turning his humble home into a shrine.
To manage the crowd and prevent this from turning big, the family had to pay for extra security and also to avoid any grave robbers.