Andrew Ridgeley reflects on losing George Michael as new Wham! documentary revisits iconic moments

Andrew Ridgeley has opened up about the bittersweet feeling of revisiting old footage of George Michael, admitting it makes him miss his lifelong friend even more nearly a decade after the singer's death.

The Wham! star, now 63, appears alongside George in the upcoming documentary Wham! 10 Days in China, which follows the duo's groundbreaking 1985 visit to China.

The newly uncovered behind-the-scenes footage captures the pair joking, arguing and navigating life as one of the biggest pop acts in the world, long before they went their separate ways.

For Andrew, watching those moments back has been quite the emotional experience.

Wham! star Andrew Ridgeley has opened up about what he felt while revisiting old footage of George Michael (Michael Putland / Contributor / Getty Images)

Speaking to the Mirror, he reflected on the loss of his childhood friend, who died on Christmas Day in 2016 aged 53 from heart and liver disease.

"He [George] was a deeply caring chap. We all miss him. For me, to have lost the best friend that I ever had is difficult, but irreplaceable [is] a childhood friend with whom you’ve spent your formative years and become an adult with and gone through youth. It’s a big loss. And the fact he was possibly one of the finest singer-songwriters that has ever set foot on the earth makes it doubly poignant."

The documentary follows Wham! as they became the first Western pop act to perform in communist China, with cameras capturing everything from their visit to the Great Wall to a state dinner and huge concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou.

While the trip was originally intended to raise the band's profile in the US, Andrew admitted neither he nor George could have predicted the lasting impact it would have.

Wham! 10 Days in China hits cinemas later this month (Pete Still / Contributor / Getty Images)

"I don’t think we had any idea of the impact or legacy that Wham!’s tour there would have achieved," he said, as the film also features first-hand accounts from Chinese fans who discovered Western pop music through the concerts.

Wham! officially split in 1986, just a year after the China tour, but Andrew said there were never any hard feelings over George launching a solo career.

"It was something George had to move on from. And we had achieved everything we had set out to achieve in spades," he explained. "We wanted to be the biggest pop act in the world. We pretty much were by the time June 28 1986, rolled round."

Asked whether George ever felt guilty about leaving Wham! behind, Andrew replied: "No, I don’t think he did, and neither should he," he said. 'It was a mutual thing, and we both understood he needed to do that.

"We were friends, we still saw each other, it wasn’t like Wham was the end of our friendship, it was just the end of the chapter in our friendship.”

Wham! 10 Days in China hits cinemas later this month (28 July)