- The new Netflix documentary "Wham!" follows the British duo's rise to stardom in the '80s.
- Andrew Ridgeley said he and George Michael had "zero money," even after their successful first tour.
- "Andrew and I both came home off tour and would go home to mom and dad," Michael said.
George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were still broke as their band was becoming a sensation, according to the new Netflix documentary "Wham!".
Using archival footage and audio from interviews, the film tracks the British pop duo's rise to stardom in the early '80s. Michael and Ridgeley embarked on their first major tour in 1983 to support their debut album, "Fantastic," which topped the UK Albums Chart.
"We had a No. 1 album. The tour was an absolute triumph. The press interest was off the scale. We had a string of hit singles. And we had zero money," Ridgeley recalled.
"Andrew and I both came home off tour and would go home to mom and dad. It was literally, literally that bad," Michael said in a voiceover, adding: "It was absolutely ludicrous."
The duo had signed a record deal with Innervision when they were still teenagers. Apparently, the contract did not grant them large cuts of their own profits.
Michael and Ridgeley recieved just 4% apiece from the revenue brought by single sales in the UK and 2% in the rest of the world, Ridgeley explained in the doc.
They didn't receive any money from sales of their 12-inch records, according to Michael, who called these terms "laughable."
"The issue is, was it fair on the day it was signed?" Michael said. "How can you call, being told that they're not gonna have their big chance at stardom if they don't sign this piece of paper — how is that fair?"
After returning home from the Club Fantastic Tour, Wham! hired Simon Napier-Bell as their manager and signed a new contract with Columbia.
Wham! quickly became one of the best-selling groups of the decade. Their second album, "Make It Big," also topped the UK chart and spawned global hits like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Careless Whisper."
The duo split ambicably in 1986 after Michael began to feel "trapped" by the heartthrob persona he created for Wham! and the fact that he'd stayed closeted while the band took off. Ridgeley also said he had lost interest in stardom after achieving so much success.
"It had to end at some point. We both knew that," Ridgeley said in the doc. "Wham! was never gonna be middle-aged, or be anything other than that essential and pure representation of us as youths. We all wake up in the middle of our dreams. Suddenly it's not there. Wham! as us, as what we were together, was at an end."
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
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