Andrew Ridgeley on Wham!, ‘vile’ tabloids and George Michael: ‘He never saw himself growing old’

Andrew Ridgeley was, for many years, the big Eighties popstar who never spoke. Holed up in Cornwall with Keren Woodward from Bananarama (Wham! and Bananarama in the same converted barn in Wadebridge!), he occasionally campaigned for Surfers Against Sewage, but seemed unconcerned with the legacy of Wham!, spilling the beans on George Michael or recalling what it was like to have six number ones before ending his career abruptly after two sellout gigs at Wembley Stadium. When he pops up on his Zoom call today, he is still, at 60, a strange combination of enigmatic and completely unbothered. Straight in physical appearance, he has a neatly buzzed baldness and a black zip-up turtleneck: the sleek and slightly space-age appearance of a record producer or conceptual artist and a nice tan, as befits good living. 

He chooses his words carefully, rolls them round his mouth with a hint of camp. He is sorry if his eyes keep flickering down to the edge of the screen: he is watching the Tour de France on an iPad at the same time as doing an interview. They’re climbing up the Col de la Columbière in the Alps right now, “a giant mountain of cycling lore”. Ridgeley recently completed a 1,000-mile event on his own bike, for charity, and is intrigued by physical challenges (he had a brief period as a racing driver in French Formula Three). At the same time, he has often said he is lazy. 

He has had his own upheaval in the last few years: no longer with Woodward, he is single and spending more time in London. The man the press used to call Randy Andy recently dated the former model Amanda Cronin. He never likes to talk about his private life – not since The Sun fabricated a story about him having a fling with two Page Three girls at once and ran a photo of them both draped around his cardboard cutout. Fair enough, but why did he never speak about Wham!?