Andrew Ridgeley
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.Collection: Friendship
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!Collection: Christmas
It's very difficult to put it into words or really put your finger on exactly what it was that people found so attractive about Wham! But it was a lot to do with George and me and our friendship.Collection: Friendship
We were bringing Wham! to a close, but we weren't bringing our friendship to a close.Collection: Friendship
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.
Perhaps the biggest lesson that I would say is the one to learn is not to let fame and fortune get inside your head.
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.
One has to spend time sort of really going back through one's memories. When you do start doing that then, you do recall more as time goes on.
We were both dabbling with music but no, I persuaded George, railroaded him really into forming a band. I think we both had the belief that we would make it. That was the central pillar around everything else.
George has left in his songs, in the transcendent beauty of his voice, and in the poetic expression of his soul, the very best of himself.
A loss of a great friend is traumatic and emotionally tough.
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!
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.
We don't like our lives being monitored, so when someone dies alone, perhaps there are always answers that remain out of reach.
I achieved my ambition early in life.
Give yourself a healthy bit of distance between your fame and reality because they are two different things.
Nothing had prepared me for the depth of pain George's death precipitated.
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.
The video for 'Last Christmas' was shot in the early winter of 1984 in the Swiss ski resort of Saas Fee. It was a glorious affair, and the two days we spent shooting it were a riot of laughter and fun, which I think comes across.
It goes without saying that when it came to musical talent, George was in a completely different league to me - as he was to most people!
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.
For a while, I really wasn't fussed about having a public profile. I have come to the realization that I am a lot more comfortable with it than I was.
It's 33 years since we drew Wham! to a close and a lot of people's perspectives have changed and a lot of the rough edges have been knocked off.
I had posted a note on my bedroom door for my mum to 'wake me up-up before you go-go' - and that gave George the idea for the song.
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.
People get very put out when someone is as forceful in their views and in their methods as George is.
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.
George probably wanted to be rich and famous - most of us do, I think - but I don't think he ever wanted to be a star.
I'd rather be called lightweight than serious any day.
I wanted a physical kick in the music. I wanted it to be stimulating.
George is so prolific as a writer.
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.
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.
George was adamant his sexuality should be kept under wraps, which created a wholly unwelcome extra level of stress for him to manage.
It's an amazing privilege to perform for an audience paying to hear the music that you've recorded.
There are people much better placed to make music than me. It's always been a young person's game.
It's nice to watch great acts perform their material. But I can't say that it tweaks any desire within.
My material contribution musically was less than George's, and George and I have both always been very open about that.
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.
One of the promises we made to each other was that Wham! would never be resurrected because it was about being young.
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.
I could see no other way of doing something with my life apart from music.
I used to love going out to discos. Chatting up the girls, getting a dance.
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.
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.
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.
Our demo tape we got signed on was composed of three songs, 'Wham Rap,' half of 'Club Tropicana' and a verse and the chorus of 'Careless Whisper' and we thought that was good enough.
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.
We were in a little bubble to a degree, but you'd never really know what was going on elsewhere, you'd done a tour in the States and then you wouldn't really know what the reaction was out of the shows because it wasn't immediate on Instagram and Twitter. It wasn't perhaps as broad as it is these days, it was fab though.