George Stroumboulopoulos hadn’t planned on owning a horse. His “children” were his motorcycles. His ex-girlfriend even had trouble getting him to name a cat.
One day in August, he decided to accompany some friends to a livestock auction in Jurupa Valley, Calif., purely as an observer.
He left with a 16.3-hand-high gelding.
There was something about the big black animal in the back corral that had moved him. “It looked like a dusty leather jacket of a horse,” he tells us. “I thought, ‘Oh, I like that guy.’”
"I didn't want a horse.... I just didn't want him to get killed"
He bid, lost, then zeroed in on the dealer who’d bought him. Fearing the horse would be mistreated and eventually sent to slaughter, George arranged to buy him for an extra US$500. Then he climbed into his fume-filled 1971 El Camino and began the two-hour drive home.
“Oh, f___,” he remembers thinking. “Now what do I do?”
Fortunately, the friend who’d helped negotiate the deal was also able to accommodate his new acquisition at her barn. George spent months getting acquainted with his equine companion, feeding, scratching, reading and taking meetings in his stall, allowing the high-strung gelding – a “pure-bred Andalusian” – to become comfortable with his unlikely saviour.
“I didn’t want a horse right now in my life,” he says. “I just didn’t want him to get killed.
"And,” he adds, smiling, “I’ve saved the dopest horse around.”
Today, other than astride his bike or at his piano, there’s no place he’d rather be than in the paddock with Vincent the Black Shadow. There’s even a “70 per cent chance” he’ll take over part of the stables’ lease.
Talk about going from a trot to a gallop.
But then George, 54 – whose on-air interviews have drawn out everyone from Tom Cruise to the future King Charles – has always been fuelled by curiosity and compassion. That, and a thirst for adventure unwittingly instilled by his Ukrainian mother, Mary. “Your world is a mansion – don’t just use two rooms,” she told him when he was a boy.
“I don’t think she meant it the way I’m living it,” he says with a grin. “But I’m living it that way.”
"My mom cannot believe how reckless I am"
How would his mother describe him? “She thinks I’m sweet; she thinks I’m hard-working,” he says, pondering the question. “She cannot believe how reckless I am. She said to me once, ‘I see you as a two-year-old riding a tricycle, and then I find out you’re in Mexico on motorcycles with cartels.’”
At our Toronto photoshoot, there’s a motorcycle waiting for its close-up – his friend Sergio has loaned his gleaming Harley for the day – but, thankfully, no cartels. George greets the Hello! Canada team as if we’re his oldest friends and offers ideas with boyish enthusiasm.
For the bike portraits in the graffiti-covered alley near his home, he has a particular mood in mind: Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones. He politely declines our suggestion that he pose in the hot tub. “Maybe in 18 months,” he jokes, looking in mock-dismay at his biceps.
The two-storey abode is in slight disarray – he’s filming a series and his “OCD mind” isn’t especially happy about the disorder – but he couldn’t be more welcoming. He found his forever home more than two decades ago, thanks to a producer on his CBC talk show, The Hour (later George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight).
“It looks like your house,” the colleague told George, “and there’s a For Sale sign on it.”
After work, George rode his bright yellow Harley over to investigate. The owner was outside, talking to the man who had built it.
Within 48 hours, the deal was done.
"I wasn't depressed at all. I actually thought I was winning"
Living in the house prompted an unexpected reckoning. Counting the places where one man could sit, he arrived at 19. The excess struck him as ridiculous. Out went the dining table, chairs, couches and much else.
Those around him were less convinced by his new approach to interiors. “When my friends started to come over, they got worried about me because, you know, ‘Why don’t you have anything here? Are you OK?’
“I wasn’t depressed at all. I actually thought I was winning. Winning by not having things.” Freedom from possessions did have one unforeseen drawback. “I kept walking into the chandelier because I didn’t have a table under it.”
One item that wasn’t going anywhere was the piano. Jackson Browne, Jeremy Dutcher and Regina Spektor have all played it, and George (himself classically trained) likes to think the instrument’s position by the window gives it a life of its own.
“It gets to see trees. It gets to see the wind blow. It’s not contained,” he says. “I feel like that piano in return gives me a full life because I’ve given it a full life.”
Furniture eventually returned, along with a new purpose for the space: to invite music lovers to gather under his roof.
He’d seen how the Queen Street West storefront studios at radio station The Edge and TV's MuchMusic had brought fans close to their favourite artists. When the radio studio became a shop and Much’s windows were shuttered, he wanted to restore that connection.
His answer? House of Strombo: a live performance series in his own living room.
Friends warned against inviting strangers into his personal space, but George went ahead anyway. On one occasion, he put out a call on Instagram, met a group of fans at a nearby park and led them around the corner to his house. Awaiting them were “The Middle” rockers Jimmy Eat World, ready to perform. “I saw the look in [the fans’] eyes and went, ‘Yeah, that’s the job.’”
"Life is really just about how you are with people. Everything else is noise"
George learned early what it meant to look out for others. Raised in Toronto’s west end (including Rexdale), he moved to Malton at age 10. His father left when he was seven and his mother had to find resourceful ways to keep him occupied while she worked. “She used to drop me off at a library in the morning because she couldn’t afford a babysitter, so she asked the librarian to keep me inside.”
At a seniors’ home, she’d say, “Go inside and find somebody to keep them company. Your job as a human being is to be there for people.”
© David PikeWhen the family had nowhere to live, a neighbour lent them a cabin north of the city. Its roof was incomplete. “So my mother and sister [Natasha] and I would sleep in one bed with the sheets over our heads so the bats wouldn’t get stuck in our hair.” But the sense of community stayed with him. “Life is really just about how you are with people,” he says. “That’s really the secret. Everything else is sort of noise.”
His mother remains a profound influence, despite their differences over politics and religion. Her instructions were straightforward: “‘Just work hard, be humble and go to heaven.’ So I try to give her two of the three,” he says with a wink.
© David PikeHis grandfather, for whom he’s named, and whom he calls Papou, offered another kind of grounding. Raised in an Egyptian orphanage, he was “a hard man,” George recalls, but a decent one. “My God, my grandfather loved me.”
On a trip to Egypt, George sailed the Nile aboard a felucca, a traditional sailing boat, following in Papou’s wake. Despite his lack of experience, he felt a powerful connection. “It’s my grandfather, man. It’s my ancestors. I come from a long line of fishermen and watermen.”
And for all his independence, he knows where his confidence comes from: “I think I’m free because I was loved by some really great people.”
"My friends and I, we don't talk about personal lives"
If his mom taught him to look out for others, music showed him how many people shared that instinct. Heavy metal gave him a sense of belonging. Punk – particularly The Clash and his idol, Joe Strummer – taught him that community was “a responsibility to create, not just to join.”
His career – intertwined with his personal passions – has taken him from The Edge and MuchMusic to his acclaimed CBC talk show, Hockey Night in Canada and, for the past five years, Apple Music. He’s earned a dozen Gemini and Canadian Screen Awards and aided relief efforts in Haiti, Pakistan, Syria and Darfur.
© David PikeFamous friends have left their mark along the way. He “learned a lot” from U2 frontman and fellow humanitarian Bono. Tom Cruise arranged motorcycle-training lessons that George believes “saved my life.” Jon Hamm – a fellow hockey zealot – frequently checked in over FaceTime during COVID.
“He always treats you like you’re the most important,” George says of his pal as we sit outside a local café in his Queen Street West neighbourhood. He texts the actor. “Let’s see if he writes back.”
A reply places Jon in New York City. Has he had his baby yet? we ask.
George looks uncomprehending. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”
“My friends and I, we don’t talk about personal lives,” he says by way of explanation. “I have no idea what’s happening in their lives.”
Then, “When’s the baby due?”
© Strombo/InstagramGeorge is, of course, a celebrity in his own right. But when the governor general’s office contacted him about the Order of Canada, he assumed they wanted to discuss musician Richie Hawtin, whom he’d recommended for the honour. “I didn’t even think it was for me,” he says.
Still, when the big day came – in March – he invited his mom. And he’s not shy of wearing the insignia – usually on denim or leather. “I don’t think these were built for dudes like me to get it through this kind of fashion,” he jokes of wrestling the pin into a leather jacket.
How does it feel to be a national treasure? He shrugs off the question.
“You know when there’s that dude on the beach with the metal detector, and he thinks he found something as treasure and it’s just, like, an old coin? Maybe I’m just an old coin,” he says, looking across the table with that disarming smile.
"I don't think I've been this excited in a long time"
Our second conversation comes via FaceTime from his Topanga retreat in the Santa Monica mountains. “This is my place, by the way,” he says, giving a mini-tour of his rustic cabin and showing off the El Camino and motorcycles outside. One area is best avoided: “That’s rattlesnake alley.”
The tranquil surroundings belie his busy routine. “I’m just finishing up a pitch document for a new show,” he tells us, before outlining the rest of his day: feeding 20 horses, mucking stalls, another interview and work on his radio station. That’s DAZ – his new independent, listener-supported venture mixing music, talk and alternative culture. Says George: “I don’t think I’ve been this excited to do a thing in a long time.”
Meanwhile, he has a new documentary, Stories That Made Us, streaming on CBC Gem, that explores how Canadian film and TV have shaped our sense of identity. Next up is an interview series featuring homegrown storytellers including Mike Myers and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, slated for release later this month.
And as if that wasn’t enough, George has written and directed two short films, both due out next year, with a third on the way.
His energy is inexhaustible, not to mention incredible, given that he runs on two to four hours of sleep each night. It’s enough, George insists, waving away suggestions to the contrary.
"I am profoundly better because of the incredible women in my life"
At 22, though, four jobs and a six-night-a-week party habit had left him “physically destroyed.” His doctor’s prognosis was bleak: “Six months, if you don’t fix this.” He ignored it. Another warning followed: “You’re really gonna be dead if you don’t change your life, like, tomorrow.”
Only after becoming seriously ill did he reach a turning point: “I woke up and thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’” He quit drinking, moved into his mother’s basement and spent months listening to Alice in Chains.
“I have a lot of discipline, and that is my ultimate strength,” George says of his recovery. But he’s reluctant to take the credit. “I got lucky. I just got really lucky.”
© David PikeToday, he’s vegan, practises intermittent fasting and often eats just one meal a day: dinner. He must be fun to date, we tease.
“I am. So much fun.”
Though he won’t elaborate on his romantic life, George is willing to reflect on it. “I am profoundly better because of the incredible women in my life who are either partners or friends,” he says. “I’m very grateful for anybody who gives me a piece of their life in that way.”
Fatherhood isn’t in the cards. “I never wanted kids,” he says. “The thing I value most on an individual level is freedom.”
© David PikeSometimes, that freedom means nothing more adventurous than an evening in front of the TV. “I watch BritBox and Acorn. I’m in my old-lady-detective era,” he announces. He’s particularly fond of “a bowl of popcorn and Vera.”
"I think it's such a glorious experience to be alive"
Has living on his own terms required sacrifices? George takes issue with the word. “A sacrifice is when you do something for nothing in return. We’ve all just invested in our lives.” Yet when it comes to the time he’s spent away from his mother, sister and nephew, “I certainly have regrets about that, and I’m not sure in the end it was worth it.”
And while he gives little thought to legacy, he does contemplate mortality.
“I am bummed by the prospect that it has to end,” he says. “I think it’s such a glorious experience to be alive. But it’s not gonna stop me from living.”
For now, there’s Vincent to come home to – and a song George can’t get out of his head: Edith Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
“I’ve been singing it all day,” he tells us over text.
Somewhere near Topanga, a horse is getting a private concert.
This article first appeared in the November 2 issue of HELLO! Canada, available on Apple News +
