Rick Astley Got 'Rickrolled' Himself But Didn't Know What It Was
By Alisan Duran on December 28, 2021 at 9:00 AM EST
Rick Astley got pranked with his own video!
The singer's 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" has been one of the most famous songs on the internet, especially for pranks. Astley got hit by the online trend called "Rickrolling," and he was clueless about it at first.
"Rickrolling" referred to people who got tricked into clicking on a hyperlink that leads to the music video to his famous song. The YouTube clip has since reached more than 1 billion views.
Rick Astley Getting Candid
The 55-year-old English singer-songwriter opened up in a recent interview about his iconic single.
"When I released that song, 'Never Gonna Give You Up' in ’87, the internet was just some crazy, futuristic dream," Astley told Fox News.
When asked about his role in a recent TikTok challenge and connecting with young fans, he said. "it’s kind of weird that we’ve come all this way and now all of a sudden, you can release something out to millions of people using just your phone and everyone can have fun with it and join in."
Astley added, "It’s one of those situations where, as you get older, you realize you have to go with the flow a little bit more."
Although he admitted that "it has been a lot of fun. And it’s certainly sparked a lot of great ideas. Especially with something like TikTok, stuff can blow up that nobody can predict, which is probably terrifying for record labels and big companies. I think that’s the joy of it."
Rick Astley Was Clueless
The singer also revealed that he got "Rickrolled" himself during the chat.
"A friend of mine 'Rickrolled' me before I even knew what it was," Astley shared, adding that his pal "had to do it a couple of times because I didn’t know what he was doing."
He added, "I’m just like, 'Why is he sending me this?' And my video just suddenly shows up. So I kept asking myself, 'What is he doing?'"
Rick Astley Was Irritated By The Prank
Astley recalled that he was vacationing in Italy at the time with his family, and he got the link to his own music video, which annoyed him.
"I just kept saying to myself, 'I don’t need this in my life right now.' I know the video, I’ve seen it a few times. So in the end, we had an actual telephone conversation. We went old school and he explained it to me. He lives in California and works in music as well. And he works with a lot of guys who are younger than him. So obviously, they’re right on the tip of everything all the time," he said.
The singer added, "I just thought it was really weird. You know, here’s a friend of mine who lives on a different continent and is sending me a video that then clicks into my song. It was just really weird and it was something difficult for me to get my head around at first. Let’s face it, that video is from a long time ago. I look like I’m 11 years old and wearing my dad’s overcoat. I just didn’t get it at first."