Quotes from Andrew Ridgeley

I think we achieved what we wanted to achieve. It was a short time period but we had broken America, we had been a worldwide success, and certainly George, as a songwriter, was outgrowing Wham!

George's contribution to the great archive of contemporary music rests alongside the immortals. His is a legacy of unquestionable brilliance and one which will continue to shine and resonate for generations to come.

George had performed musical alchemy, distilling the essence of Christmas into music. Adding a lyric which told the tale of betrayed love was a masterstroke and, as he did so often, he touched hearts.

George is very, very single-minded in his approach. And I think a lot of the things that he has said and done have been misconstrued as arrogant rather than the single-mindedness they really are.

We were the best of friends. We monkeyed around recording sketches and jingles in George's bedroom. On November 5, 1979, I phoned George and said 'It's now or never.' Then we formed our first band.

I was never jealous of my best friend. But I was envious of his talent. I had achieved my ambition of being in a band and playing live and I wanted him to go on and realize his talent as much as he did.

Despite the pain of his death, George is still very much alive in my memory today. A few years on from that tragic Christmas, I'll sometimes catch myself thinking of our friendship and those years together as young kids in Wham!

A loss of a great friend is traumatic and emotionally tough.

George and I met in 1975 at Bushey Meads secondary school in Bushey, Hertfordshire. I was in my second year - self-confident, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and excitable. He was the new boy and I was keen that I should get to look after him.

My parents actively tried to discourage me from going into music - especially Dad, because of the troubled times he had in his youth.

The great thing about dancing is it's a way to get close to a beautiful woman you have never met.

To actually pursue our ambition to its zenith, we should have made another album, because in the States we'd only had one successful album. In a sense, Wham! failed in its ultimate goal, even though it got 75 or 95 percent of the way there.

We made a decision very early on that George would be the main songwriter because it was very apparent to all of us that he was better at it.

On Christmas Day 2016, the greatest singer songwriter of his generation, an icon of his era, George Michael, was lost. A supernova in the shining stars had been extinguished and it felt like the sky had fallen in.

George felt the group wasn't giving him the freedom he needed to develop his songwriting. But I have to admit the end came a little sooner than I expected.

A terrible additional worry was the emergence of AIDS. I know I wasn't the only friend of George's who worried about him during that uncertain, frightening period.

I had always been aware of George's importance to me, of the bond of friendship and of the sparkle and light, effervescence and electricity that suffused the music we made.

George was a late arrival at school and he was sort of put in my charge, and one of the immediate similarities was that we both enjoyed music - specifically Elton John.

My material contribution musically was less than George's, and George and I have both always been very open about that.

It started out ordinarily enough: In 1975, we were two boys that happened to share a mutual sense of humor, a love of life-affirming music, the records and artists it gave birth to, and a shared sense that we understood it.

I wanted a physical kick in the music. I wanted it to be stimulating.

The success came very quickly and it was a different age so one's awareness, especially in a global sense wasn't quite the same as it was these days because of social media and because of the huge variety of media that people are exposed to.

I achieved my ambition early in life.

People get very put out when someone is as forceful in their views and in their methods as George is.