Boy George is relieved a court judge banned him from appearing on U.K. reality show Celebrity Big Brother as it would have been one of the biggest mistakes of his career.

The former Culture Club frontman was offered $1.5 million (£1 million) to sign up for a series of the fly-on-the-wall show, in which stars live together in a house under round-the-clock surveillance from live Tv cameras.

The cash-strapped singer was under a probation order at the time following his early release from a 15-month prison sentence, and a judge at London's High Court refused a request to alter the conditions of the order so he could join the Tv show.

George tells Q magazine, "For a nanosecond I was offered almost a million pounds. I was on curfew, wearing a tag and I couldn't work so I wasn't making any money. I thought: 'I'll just go in the Big Brother house, (the authorities) will know where I am!' But my mum said, 'If you go in the Big Brother house I'll disown you.' She didn't want me to do it and she was absolutely right!

"Those programmes normalise everyone. Of course, I'm a normal person, David Bowie's a normal person, everyone is, but maybe you shouldn't let people know that. In a way the High Court decision was a good one, because it took it away from me and I wasn't thinking straight. It would have been a massive mistake."

The Karma Chameleon hitmaker served five months of a 15-month sentence in 2009 for falsely imprisoning a male model at his London home.