George Michael On The Wham! Split (Rock! Magazine, 1986)

Contrary to popular belief, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley are not enemies. They both agreed to split simply because they didn’t want to fake the Wham! image anymore.

ROCK: Why did Wham! breakup?

GEORGE: Wham! has always basically meant, you know, young and vibrant, it’s not that we don’t want to still make records, we do occasionally, but I’m not 18 anymore, Andrew is not 18 anymore, and gradually as we get older the whole thing starts to become more and more forced in terms of sticking to the original formula that Wham! was supposed to be. I suppose it is just time to call it a day before it becomes, you know, really fake. At the moment we still enjoy it, but we know we wouldn’t be enjoying it another year, or in two years’ time, so we thought we would quit while we were ahead.

ROCK: How do you feel about all the publicity you received when the split was first announced?

GEORGE: l was at home when the actual split story happened and basically, I have said it once before, I don’t know whether everybody really believes me, but the only statements that went to press were about our split with management, about my split with management rather, and it is just that at the time Andrew hadn’t made his decision to split Nomis Management, which he has now, and it just looked like it was, a parting of the ways on our part, as opposed to myself and Nomis. So the press just turned it into the split story, and having decided that we were going to split later in the year, we just thought there was no point in letting people think that we were going on indefinitely. We were really only going to go on for another six months. I just think it is a shame that they laid into Andrew so much. Really, basically there is no rift between us. I mean Andrew has been out in Los Angeles with me and there is no point in saying that we are not splitting, but there is a lot of point in saying that we are still friends. That’s what most people saw as a main attraction in the group anyway.

See also George Michael's Interview with the Gay Magazine 'The Advocate' (1999)

ROCK: There have been so many stories about you being upset about having curly hair, is it true?

GEORGE: I saw a great picture in the paper of me with curly hair. I have got very curly hair. I think it is quite a joke, I spend half of my life straightening my hair and I’m always telling people. But every time I get up on stage, I’ve got kind of curly hair because I’m sweating away, then the papers write (George with new curly perm), you know. It is quite funny really, I don’t mind.

ROCK: Where in Los Angeles do you go at night?!

GEORGE: Oh… that would be telling (laughs), you really don’t want to know, well you do, but I don’t want you to know!!