Rick still enjoys the reaction to his first hit (Photo by Neil Lupin/Redferns)

Rick Astley was one of the biggest stars of the late 80s, however he’s very much a part of modern popular culture thanks to his latest albums – and some sassy folk using his main hit for a lol.

Even the man himself is enjoying it, years after Rickrolling became a thing.

As we all got into the mood of trolling one another, some smart lark came up with the idea of using Rick’s 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up in a magnificent way by inserting it into a clip not at all related.

One of the most recent was achieved by Westworld, as they teased the second series of the show with potentially the classiest Rickrolling of all time as Evan Rachel Wood chimed in with a melancholic rendition of the tune alongside Angela Sarafyan, just as viewers were poised to discover the face of Bernard’s beachside awakening.




A fan of the show, 52-year-old Rick told Metro.co.uk he’s still floored they chose to use his song in such a way.

‘I was freaked, because I love that show,’ he told us. ‘The fact the pair of them had to learn it. I was made up with that.’

He added: ‘There’s been a few I’ve loved, Mad Men did it when they cut scenes and sang it. The White House one was great, including Obama. [Westworld] is my favourite of recent times.’

Following the release of 1993’s Body and Soul, Rick took a break from the industry to raise his daughter, achieving massive success once more with 2016’s number 1 album 50.

However he is back with another album, Beautiful Life, and is keen to get everyone back out of their seats.

‘[Album] 50 taught me that people my age and people a bit older and younger still want to have a dance,’ he said, chatting about his latest offering. ‘I look out to the audience when we play the old songs and people want to get out of their seats and dance to it. I’m allowed to do a few tunes you can dance to.’

Rick is back with a Beautiful Life (Picture: Rankin)

Taking nearly 10 years out of the spotlight to raise daughter Emilie, born in 1992, alongside wife Lene Bausager, gave the star a renewed love of the music industry, admitting he grew tired of the musical rat race.

‘I got sick of the music industry and if you’re in the pop world, your candle burns brightly but quickly. I’d had enough of it and it of me,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t enjoying it in the same way, some of the things of being as famous as I was wasn’t going to translate well to being a dad.’

Still, be that as it may, alongside his latest song, the title track Beautiful Life, Rick admits he’s not sick of singing the song that made him massive.

‘I did it at a friend’s wedding the other day – it was their first song,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a lot more respect for that song and part of my life now. When people have said in the past, certainly at the time [of its release] they loved the song and made it their wedding song I couldn’t relate because I was a kid.



‘A few years under my belt, I get it – that means something to someone. I’ve embraced those tunes because it was a great part of my life.’

He told us that before the interview he’d walked ‘a mile across London and no one batted an eyelid’, as he revealed he’d played to a packed out 30,000-capacity gig and then got a coffee after with no one knowing who he was.

Speaking to the current celebrity landscape and what the likes of today’s pop stars have to deal with compared to when he was one of the biggest pop stars, he noted the internet creating a different environment.

‘I don’t think Sam Smith is a pop star, he’s an artist,’ he began. ‘Other than Ed Sheeran, he’s the most popular, at least British, male singer I can think of and if I go back to being in my 20s, both those artists are bigger than I ever was. But what they have to deal with isn’t what I had to deal with.

‘It’s a bit nuts.’

Beautiful Life is released 13 July and Rick is touring October and November.

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