Bam! George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley Photo: Netflix
When Wham! playing for the last time at Wembley Stadium on June 28, 1986, they achieved the impossible. Not because they could sell 72,000 tickets multiple times due to unprecedented demand, and not even because Wham! the documentary screened before the concert set the record for the highest number of viewers at a film premiere. Much more unusual was the fact that band members George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley did not yet hate each other by the time they took the stage.
“It's very rare to see a band – I think Wham! may be the only case – they broke up at the height of their careers and could hug each other without getting annoyed,” says Simon Halfon, friend of the duo and producer of Wham!, a new Netflix documentary that chronicles the group's rapid ascent from the school stadium in just four years .
Told through Wham!'s personal archive, never-before-seen footage and never-before-heard interviews, the tender, brilliantly upbeat film includes scenes of them backstage on that fateful last day, grinning and playing a fight. Unlike almost all other bands that end up getting divorced for money, fame or jealousy – even if they pretend otherwise in public – Wham! ended their illustrious career the same way they started, as best friends and equals.
“It's incredible to see a band understand that it has a lifespan, that it must end at a certain moment and come to terms with it says the film's director Chris Smith, whose previous work has included Fyre and American Movie. “I don’t know of other similar stories. So often it will go on until it can go no further. But in this case, it was the other way around.”
The uncomplicated, almost childish nature of the duo's friendship shines through throughout the film, contradicting the longstanding assumption that Ridgeley was a minor player in Michael's path to future superstardom. The two make faces in teenage snaps, bike side by side erratically, and laugh together in the back seat of a car at the state of Michael's handwriting. As Michael himself once admitted, “At the time, everyone thought how could these two idiots get so huge?” They even joke with Paula Yates before the final Wembley show that they should be introduced as “the legend of George Michael and his partner” and not like Wem!
In fact, the film shows that without Ridgeley, Michael would never have achieved such huge worldwide fame. He was confident, easy-going, and completely in his own shoes, even as a teenager. Michael suffered from self-doubt, was banned from buying records as a child, and was endlessly self-deprecating about himself. He was first taken into Ridgeley's tutelage at age 11, when he was the shy new kid at school. At one point, Michael calls Ridgeley his “idol” and admits: “Andrew changed my life just like I needed someone to change my life if I was going to be a pop star.” Even when it became apparent that Michael's outstanding songwriting talent meant he was destined to leave his friend and go to solo greatness, Ridgeley graciously admitted that this was the only possible outcome.
Shirley Kemp was ecstatic. from the fact that their friendship is so accurately reflected on the screen. One half of the musical duo Pepsi and Shirley, she was an integral part of the group from the start as a friend of Wham!, backing vocalist and dancer, and remained close to Ridgeley and Michael after they parted ways.
Shirley Kemp and Andrew Ridgeley on Netflix's WHAM! Photo: Netflix
“I want people to go away and say, oh my god, wasn't Andrew great? Wasn't he funny?” she says. “To realize that George would never have made it through without him, because it's true. I think Andrew is very pleased to finally feel that everyone understands who he was.”
Ridgeley was also the driving force behind the film. Although he stepped out of the spotlight when Wham! after splitting, he published his autobiography in 2019 and then approached his longtime friend Khalfon to make a documentary. The film even includes extensive clippings from a series of carefully kept scrapbooks that Ridgeley's mother faithfully collected during the band's rise to fame.
Intimate and insightful, it is fully voice-over by two bandmates, rather than relying on interviews with those around them at the time. Ridgeley was recorded specifically for the documentary, and Michael is mostly taken from a long, unedited interview with DJ Mark Goodier before his tragic death in 2016.
Wham!'s final show at Wembley Stadium on 28 June 1986. Photo: Michael Putland/Getty Images
“It made me very emotional when I listened to it, because it was like I was sitting at dinner with George again, where he tells these fantastic stories, but then he self-deprecatingly and jokes,” Halfon says. “The most surprising thing about this interview is that it seems that George is still here and we gave him a list of questions. I listened to him and realized that we have our film.”
Archival footage brings the film to life even more, capturing the band's classic pop and roaring shows in all their '80s neon glory. We see the duo laughing backstage about underwear being thrown at them at concerts and giggling mischievously during interviews while on tour in China when Wham! became the first Western pop act to ever perform there. There is even footage from the filming of the Last Christmas video in Switzerland, when the band used their friends as extras and drank real alcohol during filming. “How the director made this video, I don’t know,” Shirley says today. “Every time he said something, we went the opposite way.”
The focus is still on Wham!, which is why Michael's sexuality, which had been hidden in public until 1998, is barely discussed as the band rises to stardom. “But throughout the movie, you see him return to that conflict,” says Smith, “and ultimately I think that contributes to when Wham! I had to end it because I think it was hard to lead such a double life.”
Bam! while recording Club Tropicana in Ibiza in 1983. Photo: FG/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images
However, it's clear what Michael told his bandmates almost as soon as he realized he was gay, inviting Ridgeley and Kemp to his room while they filmed the Club Tropicana video in Ibiza. “He always said it was just fantastic, that it didn’t bother me,” Kemp recalls. “He said it reduced the weight a lot. He told me first because he even worried what Andrew would think of him and it breaks my heart. I couldn't believe he thought Andrew would have an opinion on this – like he might have let him down. So he told me and then Andrew came into his room and he told him and he reacted the same way I did, which is, “Oh, okay. It doesn't bother us.”
Halfon says both Ridgeley and Michael's sister, Yoda, saw the film and loved it. He's also sure Michael would have approved, visiting the star at home three months before his death to show him Supersonic, Halfon's previous Oasis documentary.
George Michael, Elton John and Andrew Ridgeley in a Netflix documentary. Photo: Netflix
“We had a wonderful evening,” says the producer. “I think it resonated with him because of the connection between the artist and the audience on such a massive scale that George obviously had. He kept saying it was amazing. That's why I had no thoughts in my head about whether he would want it. I was so sure he would be proud of it.”
Kemp admits that she was initially afraid to watch the film for fear that it would be too upsetting, but now she is sure she will like it. The nostalgic side of Michael.
“George always said his happiest time was when we were younger,” she explains.
“Every time he came to see me home, he said: Do you remember when we did it? So if it makes people love him even more and love his music even more, then he will smile down on us.”
BAM! on Netflix starting July 5
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