George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley’s friendship was “founded on juvenile humour”.
The Wham! stars – who met at secondary school in Bushey, Hertfordshire, in the 1970s, before going on to become 80s pop legends – took crafting music very “seriously”, but they had huge amounts of fun outside of the studio, with Andrew recalling himself and George – who sadly passed away on Christmas Day 2016 aged 53 – once going Christmas carolling with a giant blow-up sex doll after hitting the booze.
Those who knew who they were laughed it off, but not everyone that opened their door was best pleased by the cheeky pair’s prank.
Taking part in NME’s ‘Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!’ Q+A, Andrew recalled the responses were: “Varied! Some people had no idea at all who was carolling outside their front door and others obviously knew immediately, but those carolling forays were always fairly well-lubricated . Like any other 20/21 year-olds, we were having the times of our life. Our friendship was founded on juvenile humour. We didn’t take ourselves seriously. We took the songwriting and making the records seriously, but that’s when it stopped!”
Andrew, 60, played Scrabble with George at their final meeting.
The last time the ‘Club Tropicana’ hitmakers met up, several months before the tragedy, they had one of their regular board game sessions.
He recently told PEOPLE: “[George] was a big fan and we’d have regular games of Scrabble. He’d beaten me the week before, and I was exacting my revenge. It took us right back to just … the essence of our schoolboy friendship and one-upmanship. It was a game that stimulated him, and me also. That was a few months prior to his passing.”
When asked what he would say to his old friend if he was still around, Andrew added: “What would I say to him? Oh, let’s go and have a drink.”
The musician went on to speak about plans to induct the ‘Careless Whisper’ star into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year – revealing his pal would have been thrilled with the honour.
He said: “[It’s] obviously a great privilege, and I’m sure that he would recognise it as such. He was aware of the meaning of accolades from his peers.
“He would be very rightly proud, and he deserves his place there. You know, he is a genuine legend and an icon of contemporary music … He was a supernova in a firmament of shining lights and stars, and he was probably the finest singing voice and songwriter of his generation. There ain’t too many that held a candle to him.”
The induction will take place during a ceremony on Friday, November 3 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.