Early Life
Ridgeley was born in Windlesham, Surrey to Jennifer and Albert Ridgeley. His mother is British and his father is Egyptian-Italian. Ridgeley grew up in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and attended Bushey Meads School. His mother was a schoolteacher at Bushey Heath Primary School and his father worked for Canon. When George Michael was enrolled at the school, Ridgeley volunteered to take him under his wing.
After years of playing in various music groups, Michael and Ridgeley formed Wham! They then approached various record labels with a homemade tape (which took ten minutes to record in Ridgeley's living room), and signed with Innervision Records. According to "I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch", a book written by Wham's manager, Simon Napier-Bell, the band left Innervision after the first album and signed to CBS.
Read more about this topic: Andrew Ridgeley
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