The ‘Faith’ hitmaker – who came close to death last year after battling the life-threatening illness pneumonia – took to his twitter account during a holiday in the Southern Hemisphere with boyfriend Fadi Fawaz to reveal he is “slowly recovering” and has set a date for his recovery.

In a series of tweets, George – who was forced  to cancel a number of dates of his ‘Symphonica’ European tour when he was struck by the illness last year – wrote: “Hi boyz n gelz, still enjoying a little time in the southern hemisphere, voice is slowly recovering, spent the afternoon writing in the sun. Realistically I can’t see my vocal cords being being ready till the summer, but then I have to think about people losing out if ….they are on their summer hols. So September seems the most likely. Sorry about that everyone. Rest assured I will use the time wisely… As in… working on improving the show, mixing the live tracks, finishing brand new tracks! (sic)”.

The 48-year-old openly homosexual singer – who recently blasted a US Christian group who prayed for him to die – admitted his illness was a “b*****d thing” to deal with, but he has put it down to being “God’s little joke”, he tweeted: “Pneumonia may have been a b*****d thing to go thru, but normally when I suffer you guys benefit somehow, don’t you think  That’s just how it goes in GM world. God’s little joke. Long may it continue (sic)”