Andrew Ridgeley was "concerned" by George Michael's drug use.
Andrew Ridgeley worried about George Michael
The 60-year-old singer admitted he was worried about his late Wham! bandmate after he was arrested several times and even jailed for a month in 2010 for offenses stemming from his cannabis use, but he is reluctant to talk to much about the subject because his friend's estate are "very sensitive" about it, even though George himself was happy to speak openly about his habit.
He told Sunday Times Culture magazine: “I was concerned by his cannabis use, to be honest. But it’s not a subject that I can go into in great detail, because of my relationship with the George Michael estate.
"They’re very sensitive about that. It’s strange, because so much of his proclivities and peccadillos Yog talked about himself. And yet it’s an off-limits subject for the estate.”
Andrew shared his worries with George, but admitted his pal was "a little prickly" about being confronted.
He said: “A little bit. But he was a little prickly about that sort of thing, he wasn’t forthcoming. I mean, he treated the whole episode of being jailed as an amusing sort of sojourn.”
The 'Edge of Heaven' singer believes George's drug use came after Wham! disbanded.
He said: “We were a pop group, not a rock group. It wasn’t around us… We were working a lot as well.
"It just wasn’t when he started smoking. That was in the mid 1980s, maybe, late 1980s, perhaps. I think that was the beginning of his drug use proper.
“You know what happened with cannabis through the 1970s to 1990 with its evolution from a fairly mild benign affair to super skunk. They went to great lengths to breed stronger and stronger varieties.
"I’ve other friends for whom cannabis use became a bit of a problem. And I personally think that it became a factor in Yog’s less edifying moments."
In 1998, George came out as gay after he was arrested in 1998 for a lewd act in a Los Angeles toilet and Andrew doesn't think the 'Freedom' singer - who died in December 2016 - would have made "an announcement" about his sexuality if it hadn't been for his public brush with the law.
He said: "I think he felt that he didn’t need to make an announcement — that would be an imposition on him. He wasn’t going to be backed into a corner.”
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