Wham! member Andrew Ridgeley has discussed his relationship with George Michael and said that the singer’s “later years weren’t his best” due to “many contributing factors”.
Michael, whose real name was Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, died in 2016 at the age of 53 and appeared in the tabloids in the years preceding his death due to various run-ins with the law.
Speaking about what it was like to come to terms with Michael’s death, Ridgeley, 60, told Radio Times: “It’s a great loss to me and to all his friends that we’re unable to enjoy his company at this stage of life.
“His later years weren’t his best, with many contributing factors, but, for me, even latterly, our get-togethers always had the same things as before.
“The pleasure we found in each other’s company, and the amusement with which we regarded each other – that didn’t change.”
Ridgeley and Michael formed Wham! in 1981 and they went on to release a series of hits including number one singles Last Christmas and I’m Your Man.
Discussing why Wham! needed to come to an end, Ridgeley said: “We had to bring Wham! to an end for George to grow into the artist he was destined to be.”
Asked if he knew whether Michael would achieve worldwide acclaim, he said “Oh, God, yeah. I was extremely proud of him.”
Michael found huge success as a solo artist but in the noughties made headlines when he was banned from driving due to drug possession.
In October 2006, Michael was found slumped over the wheel of his car and the following May he pleaded guilty to driving while unfit through drugs and was banned from driving for two years.
In September 2010, Michael pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis and driving under the influence of drugs after crashing his Range Rover into a north London shop the previous July. He received an eight-week prison sentence and a five-year driving ban.
After Michael’s death in 2016, Ridgeley led the tributes saying: “I had always been aware of George’s importance to me, of the bond of friendship and of the sparkle and light, effervescence and electricity that suffused the music we made.
“Yet in the intervening years between our career together as Wham! and where our different lives had subsequently led us, I had somehow lost sight of quite what my childhood best friend meant to me.”
A 90-minute film about Wham!, will be released on Netflix on July 5 that will give a “genuinely authentic account” of the bands rise, told by former bandmates Ridgeley and the late Michael.
The full interview is in Radio Times, out now.