We had to pay for Parfitt’s funeral, claims Quo frontman
STATUS Quo frontman Francis Rossi has claimed the family of late bandmate Rick Parfitt failed to arrange his funeral – and suggested ‘money and ego’ played a part in his friend’s demise.
Speaking for the first time since Parfitt’s death aged 68 on Christmas Eve in Spain, Rossi claimed that while he could handle the pressures of fame, Parfitt was doomed by trying to live up to his ‘wild man of rock’ stereotype.
Parfitt, who estimated he had spent about £1.7million on hard drugs, paid the price for his legendary lifestyle, suffering four heart attacks. And probate records released yesterday show that he left an estate of just £230,000 – a far cry from the £10million he was believed to have amassed.
Parfitt had been living in Malaga at the time of his death,
‘His family were dithering’
where he had just separated from his third wife, and Quo ended up paying to have his body flown home. Rossi, 68, said: ‘I don’t know why – there was some procrastination of some sort with the insurance. And we also paid for the funeral because his family were dithering.’
Over the decades of Status Quo’s success, Parfitt’s relationship with Rossi became strained to breaking point. And in April, his son Rick Parfitt Jr, 42, said that the lack of a tribute to his father at Quo’s first show since his death ‘speaks volumes’, before adding: ‘Dad was treated awfully.’
But Rossi denied any suggestion that the band mistreated Parfitt or did not pay him his full due. He said: ‘It’s far from the truth – Rick was on his full money, everything was the same. We were earning money, and he was being paid. I can’t understand why his boys were saying that, or why someone would tell them that.’
Parfitt was also renowned for his womanising – sleeping with countless groupies and fathering five children from three wives. Rossi – who no longer sports his pony tail – added: ‘In the end I think he tried to live up to this image of this person who was “wild Ricky Parfitt”.
‘I can see where ego, money and everything else gets to us in the end. Some of us can control it, some of us can’t.’
New Status Quo album The Last Night Of The Electrics is released on July 14, and a UK tour begins on November 26.