WAITING FOR A STAR TO FALL

As George Michael attempts to recover from yet another scandal,Showbiz Correspondent Maureen Coleman looks at the stars who havesurvived spectacular falls from grace - and those who may neverrecover

DISGRACED pop star George Michael is back in the headlines afteryet another misdemeanour in a public toilet.

Ten years after his arrest for lewd conduct in a public loo, theformer Wham star was caught with crack cocaine and cannabis.

It's the latest in a series of embarrassing incidents for thestar, who allegedly sobbed to police officers as he begged them notto charge him.

The 1998 arrest forced George Michael to admit he was gay andironically, helped turnaround his career - even providing theinspiration for the video to accompany the hit single Outside. Whocan forget the singer as he danced around a toilet, dressed in atight policeman's uniform? Despite his arrest - or maybe because ofit - George Michael had the last laugh.

Of course, the Careless Whisper star isn't the first celebrity tobounce back following a very public fall from grace.

Earlier this month we witnessed the triumphant comeback ofBritney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards - a year after adisastrous performance at the same event. This time Britney did notperform, but she opened the show and went on to win three awards.

In stark contrast to last year's appearance, Britney lookedhealthy and toned as she accepted the awards. Yet just six monthsago, the superstar's career seem finished as she stumbled from onecatastrophe to another. A marriage break-up, a public breakdown,stints in a psychiatric unit and that infamous head-shaving incidentall pointed to a woman clearly on the edge.

Her fall from grace seemed complete when she lost custody of herchildren. But Britney seems determined to make a fresh start.Whether she can do it or not remains to be seen.

Another star who survived public disgrace was supermodel KateMoss. In September 2005, The Daily Mirror published pictures of theCroydon style icon snorting cocaine at a Babyshambles recordingsession. At the time Moss was dating the band's junkie frontman PeteDoherty.

As a result of the revelations, Moss lost several lucrativemodelling contracts, including Chanel and Burberry. She laterapologised, saying that she had to take responsibility for heractions, although she stopped short of admitting drug use.

Moss continued to model for Dior and when police finally droppedthe charges in 2006 due to lack of evidence, she resumed her careerand remains the UK's best known and most successful model. In 2007Forbes magazine named her second on the list of the world's 15 top-earning supermodels.

British actor Hugh Grant also managed to save his career afterhis highly-publicised liaison with Los Angeles prostitute DivineBrown. Despite his exploration of LA's seedy side and his subsequentarrest, Grant won some admirers when he went ahead with a plannedappearance on The Jay Leno Show a few weeks later, when he famouslysaid; "I think you know in life what's a good thing and what's a badthing and I did a bad thing. And there you have it."

The foppish actor went on to enjoy success in a string of moviesincluding Notting Hill, Bridget Jones' Diary and Love Actually.

Other celebrities who have survived scandals include WayneRooney, who visited a brothel, Angus Deayton, who enjoyed cocaine-fulled romps with a call girl in 2002 and Paris Hilton, who became aglobal phenomenon after a home sex tape was leaked to the internet.

There are, however, those whose mad or bad behaviour is just tooextreme for the public to forgive. Take Michael Jackson, forexample. Although never convicted of child abuse, the allegationssurrounding him were enough to damage his career and force him toretire from the public eye.

He may be a musical genius but his talent has been overshadowedby his bizarre antics and those high profile scandals. There's talkof a comeback, but those child abuse rumours will never go away.

And one former star who is unlikely to ever clear his name isglam rocker Gary Glitter. The shamed singer, whose real name is PaulGadd, was jailed in Vietnam in 2006 for committing obscene acts withtwo under-age girls. Even before this Glitter has been placed on thesex abuse register in the UK after he was found to be in possessionof child porn.

Glitter was released from jail recently and returned to the UKbut has been forced to flee his seaside hideaway after becoming afigure of hate.

It has been reported he hopes to release an album when the furoredies down. But Glitter has underestimated the public's sense ofrevulsion and the extent to which his reputation has been damaged.

This is one comeback album the public may never buy.