SUFFOLK, ENGLAND – The Boy otherwise know as George O’Dowd was released from prison early Monday after serving 4 months of a 15-month sentence for false imprisonment and assault on a male prostitute.

He was sentenced in January after being convicted in December of handcuffing Audun Carlsen to a wall and then beating him with a chain. The judge in the case said the act was “premeditated callous and humiliating,” and had left Carlson “shocked, degraded and traumatised,” and deprived of his liberty and “human dignity.”

While O’Dowd had previously explained that he had met Carlson before the night in question, and that the sex worker had tampered with his computer, he declined to testify at the trial because he did not want to upset his mother.

According to photos taken at the prison as he was leaving as well as first-person accounts, Boy George lost weight while in the slammer and, sporting a new goatee, looked better than he has in years.

“Being locked up for false imprisonment of a male prostitute may have been the best thing that’s ever happened to him,” said the snark masters at TMZ.