George Michael's lover Fadi Fawaz spent an hour trying to resuscitate the singer after finding him dead on Christmas morning, a leaked 999 recording reveals. In a frantic exchange, Fawaz can be heard telling the emergency service operator that the pop-icon was "very stiff and blue" and "gone".

When asked if the star is beyond help, he replies: "I've been trying to wake him up for the last hour but it was not possible.

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"I think he's dead. He's dead."

Police are continuing to investigate the singer's final hours after a postmortem on the 53-year-old's body proved inconclusive.

A statement from Michael's manager claimed the singer suffered heart failure, but an exact cause of death is yet to be determined.

Toxicology tests are ongoing amid rumours of drug addiction problems.

The 999 call, released by The Sun, gives the clearest indication yet of exactly what happened after Fawaz, 43, found Michael lying motionless in bed at his home in Goring, Oxford.

Authorities interviewed Fawaz multiple times, before officially ruling out foul play.

The celebrity hairdresser dated Michael for a number of years, helping him through a life-threatening battle with pneumonia in 2011.

When asked by the operator if Michael's death was "expected," Fawaz replies: "No, no, no, no, no, no, I've been waiting for him to wake him up for like, you know, for hours and he wouldn't wake up, I went to wake him up and he was gone, you know, he's not there."

Taking to Twitter on Boxing Day, Fawaz wrote: "It's a Xmas I will never forget finding your partner dead peacefully in bed first thing in the morning. I will never stop missing you xx."

He later temporarily shut down his Twitter account after tweets were sent out suggesting Michael had committed suicide. Fawaz claimed they were sent by hackers using his name.

Responding to speculation over Michael's actions on Christmas Eve, the night before his death, Fawaz stated: "I never saw him. I fell asleep in my car and I never saw him that night. The police know ­everything. That's the most important thing."