Rick Astley rolls into a billion YouTube views
- Published
Rick Astley hit Never Gonna Give You Up has passed one billion views on YouTube.
The song, released 34 years ago this week, found new popularity with the rise of Rickrolling, an internet prank where people are tricked into clicking on a hyperlink that leads to the video.
At the time of writing, the YouTube video has 1,001,264,871 views.
Astley called passing the billion mark "mind blowing". In a video posted to Twitter, he said he was "very lucky".
When released, the song reached number one in the UK - but Rickrolling helped it find a new audience, clocking up an extra 2.3 million views on this year's April Fool's Day alone.
Allow Twitter content?
This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
In 2020, as videoconferencing became an increasing part of lockdown life, technology news website CNET reported a developer had invented a way to Rickroll Zoom meetings, external.
Related topics
- Published19 July 2021
- Published24 October 2019