RICK ASTLEY: 'MOST PEOPLE WHO WANT A SELFIE WITH ME ARE YOUNG'
Rick Astley, 60, is an English singer-songwriter, best known for a string of 80s hits, including Never Gonna Give You Up and Together Forever. After a break, he started releasing music again in the 2000s, his career getting a new lease of life with the internet prank of ‘Rickrolling’ (tricking people into clicking a link to the Never Gonna Give You Up video).
He was born in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, which is now within Merseyside. “They changed the border,” he says. “But I’m a Lancashire lad.” His recent albums include Beautiful Life and Are We There Yet?.
Astley is married to Danish film producer Lene Bausager, who is also his manager. The couple live in Richmond upon Thames. They have a daughter called Emilie.
Here, for our My Saturday column, he shares how he spends his downtime.
7.30am
Unless we’ve had a Friday night out or I was gigging, we’re awake by 7.30am. I like a sneaky look on my phone early on to see who’s playing in the Premier League. I’m loath to say I’m a Manchester United fan. It’s been tough for the last decade or so but if you’re a supporter, you support them and watch anyway.
8am
We live close to Hampton Court. Lene likes to go in the garden. I like to go out for a long walk. I feel that if I’ve got enough steps done before I’ve even had a coffee, I’m off to a good start. It’s mentally good for me, even when it’s freezing, wet and horrible.
I normally go along the Thames, or we have a few massive parks – you can walk in Bushy Park for days and there are wild deer there. I do the same route each Saturday because I want to end up at one of the local coffee shops. I’m a bit of a coffee snob. Occasionally, someone who isn’t local will recognise me and go “You’re Rick Astley” and I’ll say, “Yep.” But mostly I’m just that dude who wears the black coat and a black woolly hat, and walks around with his headphones on.
9am
I might have a bit of breakfast out – just by myself. I listen to podcasts religiously, including The Rest is History with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, and some of the music business ones, like Rockonteurs, with Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet and Guy Pratt, a legendary bass player.
10am
I can happily come back from a walk and watch a movie. I can watch old movies again and again. I can watch Gladiator at least once a year. Because Lene works in the movies and votes on Bafta, we often have to watch movies at the weekend during Bafta season.
We’ve been married for 13 years but we’ve known each other since 1987 and been together since 1989. A lot of a relationship comes down to respect. Respect is possibly even a bigger word than love – you can love someone, but if you don’t respect them, you won’t stay with them. She’s always been a motivated do-er. She’s been swamped with looking after my career – she pushed that up a hill over the last 10 years and got it going again.
We do try to switch off from work at the weekend. It’s difficult – it’s not the way our business works. I can switch off easier than Lene because she’s doing the managing and I’m just doing the swanning about.
1pm
Lene loves to cook lunch – it’s one of her ways to get grounded in the real world, if we’ve been travelling. I often want to go out. I’d happily go to a hotel on the river: the Mitre. The restaurant’s on the water, so if the sun’s out, I’m like, “Let’s do it.”
That hysteria of “Oh, it’s Rick Astley” is less of a thing now. People don’t get freaked out by seeing me – I just don’t think people care. Most people who want a selfie are quite young – it’s about Rickrolling or Never Gonna Give You Up being used in a video game. Sometimes parents or grandparents – the same age as me – come up to me. The worst thing about it today is no one knows how to use a bloody phone any more, so it takes seven minutes to get the bloody camera turned the right way around. You could be stood there at 4 o’clock with a negroni in your hand, the first cocktail of the day, and they’re like, “Hang on a minute, I’ve nearly got it…”.
I do prefer how things are now. I felt like I was in a competition in my 20s. Everyone’s gearing everything towards getting a number one. But, hang on, is the music any good? If you’re not number one, is that failure? There is an ugly side to the music business. I’m not anywhere near any of that now. If I put a record out, it’s because I fancied making one.
5pm
I still love going to the pub. One of my closest friends lives close enough to a few pubs we like. We’ll say, “Shall we meet for one?” I like an early pint. We might have another sneaky half, then we’re done.
7.30pm
Lene and I like to be home. It might seem mundane and boring. I don’t want to come over all rock ‘n’ roll, but I have done the “going out” thing. We get to do a lot of amazing things. Of course, sometimes we find ourselves hanging around a dressing room in Coventry for four hours but all of a sudden you find yourself doing an outdoor gig in Chile, looking at the Pacific, or you’re off for margaritas in Mexico, or you’re onstage with the Foo Fighters, so when you get home, you think: “Let’s just have a roast dinner on a Saturday.” It’s the yin and yang – the balance.
I like living in a leafy suburb. We might move even further into the countryside, and we’ve often talked about living up a hill in Italy – that would be our dream.
Sometimes we’ll have friends over for dinner, or it’s just us. If it’s Saturday night, we’re opening a bottle of wine. Lene cooks. My responsibilities are lighting a fire, lighting candles, making sure everyone has a good glass of wine, and music. I play the same bloody stuff all the time: Bill Withers, Al Green, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra…
10.30pm
If Lene’s still rocking or we have friends over, the night could end at any time. If Lene’s gone to bed and I’ve still got half a glass of wine, I might have a sneaky watch of Match of the Day. Football on a Saturday is a traditional, comforting thing. If Manchester United lost, it used to affect my mood a lot more than it does today – I’m used to them not winning now.
Rick Astley is playing gigs across the UK for his Reflection tour from April 10-25: rickastley.co.uk. His autobiography, Never, is also out now in paperback (Macmillan, £20).
2026-02-07T12:25:40Z