Time to stop having a pop at Ridgeley

kentonline news editor

The best thing about the start of the new year – or specifically the end of 2016 – is that we can all hope the death of anyone famous will no longer be treated as some sort of ‘trend’.

Undoubtedly, a lot of well-known people died last year. But surely, as much as anything else, it’s just a symptom of the fact that there are actually a lot of well-known people knocking around in our celebrity-obsessed age?

As always, the over-emotional people on social media managed to turn each death into their own personal tragedy, as if the cumulative effect of.the 2016 ‘celebrity deaths’ was the real cause for sorrow, rather than the genuine sadness of each individual passing.

The plea to stop any more famous people dying echoed through Facebook and Twitter as 2016 came to an end, which must have offered much comfort to the families of Rick Parfitt and Carrie Fisher.

One unfortunate by-product of George Michael’s untimely death is that many people have used it as a lame excuse to have another pop at Andrew Ridgeley, his partner in Wham!

Ridgeley’s main crime appears to have been his lower profile in the pop duo and the fact that he didn’t go on to have a glittering international career as a solo artist.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always been a great admirer. Ridgeley never pretended his role was anything greater than it was and apparently gave his schoolfriend confidence to get on stage in the first place. He conducted himself with dignity during and after the group’s demise, while continuing to work anonymously in the music industry. He made enough money from Wham! to live comfortably in Cornwall, where he spends his spare time surfing and being married to one of Bananarama. No wonder he attracts so much jealousy.