Pete Burns of Dead or Alive, ten years on: archive pictures from Soho, 2006

October 23, 2026

Pete Burns, the singer who fronted Dead or Alive, died on 23 October 2016, aged 57. This week marks ten years.

In 2006 our paths crossed twice on London pavements. The first time was outside the Groucho Club in Soho on the night of 10 February. The second was outside Movida in the West End, in the early hours of 15 April.

That February was one of the busiest moments of his public life. Celebrity Big Brother had ended on 27 January, with Burns in fifth place. On 5 February the BBC reported that a re-release of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" had gone straight into the UK top five. The song had first reached number one in March 1985, and twenty one years later a new audience was hearing it.

Five days after that chart news he came out of the Groucho Club with Faria Alam, the former Football Association secretary, who had shared the Big Brother house with him. By my camera's clock the night starts at 11.21pm, and the frames of the two of them leaving sit after 12.40am. It was a long night for a few minutes of pictures.

In April I photographed him again, leaving Movida. That folder holds seven frames taken over nine minutes, between 2.19am and 2.28am. He is wearing a tiara in some of them.

I have been careful about which frames are shown. Pictures where other people on the street are the main subject, or where clothing had slipped, are not used. The ones that remain show him as he chose to appear in public in 2006, bold and impossible to miss.

Ten years after his death, "You Spin Me Round" is still the song most people know him for. My photography years ran from 1999 to 2014, and these pictures are part of that archive.

The pictures

Groucho Club, Soho, night of 10 February 2006: Pete Burns and Faria Alam leave the club.

Movida, West End, early hours of 15 April 2006: Pete Burns leaves the club.

Credit: Charlie Pycraft / BACKGRID. Licensing: Backgrid UK Sales, backgrid_uksales@shutterstock.com