Rick Astley reveals brother's devastating death, abusive father, 'detached' mother and homelessness struggle

ok.co.uk:

Rick Astley admits that his famous 1987 hit made him feel like he'd hit the jackpot. "Becoming that guy who sang Never Gonna Give You Up was like winning the lottery," he says of the song that gave him all the money he ever needed. "Maybe for about 15 seconds I might have been almost as famous as David Bowie." The singer-songwriter remains endearingly modest today.

He found superstardom at the age of 21 with that iconic single, which topped the charts in 25 countries and sold more than a million copies in the UK alone, but he didn't let fame go to his head. "I've never been the kind of guy who's got two Ferraris on the drive and I'm about to drive one into a swimming pool.

I'm not that motivated by stuff. My main motivation about having money is being comfortable and being quite protected, which comes from my strange, erratic upbringing," he says.

Rick, 58, writes about his childhood and pop career in his autobiography, Never. One of five children, he lost a brother, who died from meningitis at just three years old, he was brought up in the little town of Newton-le-Willows in Merseyside by a volatile father, whose violent outbursts left the children in fear, and endured a mother who was emotionally detached from her offspring.