Rick Astley has praised Greta Thunberg for Rickrolling the audience at a Climate Live concert in Stockholm.
The 18-year-old Swedish environmental activist played a prank on the crowd during her speech at the concert in Sweden, by performing a “Rickroll”, the famous meme involving an unexpected appearance of the 80s pop star’s 1987 hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.
After a more serious speech, the teenager – who has challenged world leaders to take immediate action on climate change – said the lyric: “We’re no strangers to love”, before the song played out and she and another activist danced on stage.
Sharing the clip on Twitter, the 55-year-old star tweeted in Greta’s native tongue: “Fantastic and Tack så mycket! Rick x”, which translates to “thanks so much.”
Meanwhile, Matty Healy previously claimed Greta was rejected for a musical collaboration by “bigger artists” than The 1975.
The protestor made her musical debut on the group’s 2020 album ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ on the track ‘The 1975’ – the eponymous title given to the instrumental song which opens the band’s album – in which she read an essay over minimal orchestral backing, and the 32-year-old frontman was delighted to help the teenager be “documented in a formal place”.
He said: “There are so many tweets and endorsements, transient statements about Greta. But I really wanted [her voice] to be documented in a formal place in pop culture.”
Matty claimed Greta was snubbed by other artists because they are only interested in being “progressive but safe”.
He said: “I feel like big statements will be made by pop stars, but they’ll do it when the cultural narrative has massaged a subject enough for it to be not really a statement any more.
“A narrative needs to be seen as progressive but also safe. I call it ‘workshop woke’.”