Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael

Sony released the collection on 9 November 1998 as a condition of Michael severing his contractual ties with the label. It holds 29 songs, or 28 in North America, split across two discs: For the Heart, mostly ballads, and For the Feet, mostly dance tunes. A DVD of 23 videos followed in 1999. It gathered duets that had not been on a George Michael album before, including I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) with Aretha Franklin, Desafinado with the Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto and Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me with Elton John. Careless Whisper appears in its single version. The singles were Outside and As, a duet with Mary J. Blige that reached number four in the UK.

It opened at number one in the UK on 21 November 1998, stayed on top for eight weeks and was certified nine-times platinum. In the US it peaked at number 24. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave it four and a half stars out of five. After Michael's death, Geri Halliwell said on The One Show that all the British profits from the album went to the Terrence Higgins Trust.