‘You can’t kill ambition and I still want fame’
Filmed over a six-month period as music legend Sir Cliff Richard prepares to launch his 104th album, ITV is showing his first in-depth TV documentary in years…
One-off documentary Sir Cliff Richard: 60 Years In Private And In Public, features interviews with his A-list pals (Olivia Newton-john, Sir Barry Gibb, Jimmy Osmond, Andrew Lloyd-webber and Dame Joan Collins all pop up, along with Sinitta…) and a softly-spoken Cliff talks candidly about the dark days that followed the Bbc-televised raid on his home in 2014, and the superstar’s subsequent battle to clear his name.
With an accusation of sexual assault threatening to destroy his carefully constructed image, we see the 78-year-old “Peter Pan of Pop” adamantly declaring, “I do not have any hint of that kind of activity in my background – not at all. It [the accusation] shook me rigid. I can’t explain how bad it felt.”
Sir Cliff goes on to say, “I refuse to be fodder to journalism. You can’t kill ambition and I still want fame. I like what I am, I like where I am, I like what I do, I like who I am.”
The chart-topper also allows the film crew into his Portuguese home safe haven and throws open his winery to 1,400 (very excited) fans. “The privacy here is so terrific. I’m free of cameras pointing at me – until today,” he chuckles, adding, “Before I was 20 I had a couple of number ones. I realised my private life was almost gone – and so coming here allows me to escape. Even in the darkest moments of my life, I was here. I didn’t become a celebrity to have people say all sorts of c**p about me publicly.” Go, Cliff!