(Credit: Netflix)
Sun 28 September 2025 8:00, UK
We’re all guilty of dismissing teenage pop as purely superfluous and not having any real impact on the overall face of music. But let’s not forget that by the time that Wham! broke up in 1986, 72,000 fans packed out Wembley Stadium in an eight-hour marathon to say goodbye to the band. It sells.
The climax of that seismic career came after only five years, but in that relatively short time, the course of the lives of both George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were forever changed. Of course, despite their farewell stadium gig meaning they were able to go out on the highest of highs, there was always bound to be some melancholy mix of regret around their split and the fact that the band was ultimately so short-lived. But for Ridgeley, it was all about giving the fans a proper send-off.
Although Wembley Stadium, in those days and even still now, very much represents the pinnacle, the singer had his sights set on a much grander scale for Wham!’s final foray than what it ended up being. This was especially true in terms of their last album, fittingly titled The Final, which Ridgeley has always evidently regretted and pined after in the sense of giving it much more of a platform.
Decades on from its release in 1986, Ridgeley acknowledged the 37th anniversary of the band’s last epic performance at Wembley in an interview with the BBC in 2023, in which he gave his true opinion on how he thought the closing chapter of Wham! should have really played out. “I would have liked to tour The Final, to be honest,” he candidly admitted. “I felt a final tour to say goodbye to our fans around the world would have been a generous gesture. I felt it was a courtesy to them to have done that. The least we could have done, to be honest with you.”
Despite this, he also added: “But I also understood [George’s] essential ideology behind having just one show.” In a way, this highlighted the exact issue that lay at the heart of Wham! – they were two people who really did love each other and what they did, but ultimately had completely opposite outlooks on the world. Michael was all about making a statement and going out with a bang; Ridgeley wanted a more considered farewell.
After just two short hours on stage at Wembley Stadium that night on June 28th, 1986, the dynasty of Wham! was over. Obviously, a bittersweet moment for all who were involved, but particularly for the two men front and centre, it was the time in which part of their lives were forever over, but equally ready, in some respects, to begin again.
That is clearly an enormous thing to have to grapple with when you’re only 23 years old, as Ridgeley was at the time when the band came to an end. In this sense, as the years and decades have worn on, and especially hammered home since the tragic death of Michael in 2016, it’s easy for him to have been plagued with regrets over the things left unsaid or the roads not taken. But there’s no denying that Wham! were pop behemoths that changed the scene forever – and nothing can ever take that away.
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