Family heartbreak put Rick Astley on path to fame

Rick Astley returned to the spotlight in recent years, performing at Glastonbury in 2023

Rick Astley has described how a heartbreak endured by his parents before his birth pushed him towards the spotlight as a child.

The singer said the death of his brother before he was born saw his parents separate when he was very young.

In an interview ahead of the publication of his memoir Never: The Autobiography, he said: "I think it did form me as a person, definitely, and formed a lot of my choices of why I went into music and why I wanted to be on a stage and why I wanted people’s attention – because I don’t think I got enough attention from my parents.”

Astley, from Newton-le-Willows, found stardom aged 21 with the chart-topping single Never Gonna Give You Up.

'Lovely thing'

Astley, now 58, sold five million copies of his album Whenever You Need Somebody, but left the music industry within a matter of years.

It was a decision that he said was influenced by becoming a parent himself.

"Even though I was having an amazing career in music and I was so lucky to experience a lot of the things that I did, I think after four or five years of it I'd kind of had enough…and I think being a parent solidified that for me," he told BBC North West Tonight.

Astley joked that his life was "all downhill" after his early success.

"I didn't do any growing up really, I didn't do the the growing up people normally do when you perhaps go to uni or go to your first few jobs… and find out what you like and who are you are and all the rest of it," he said.

In recent years, the Rickrolling social media trend of baiting people into inadvertently clicking on a link to the video for Never Gonna Give You Up has brought him to the attention of a new generation.

But he said fame does not interfere too much with his everyday life these days.

"It’s just a really lovely thing that sort of floats through my life but it doesn’t overtake it," he added.

Astley's new book Never: The Autobiography is published on 10 October.