80s stars unrecognisable as they reunite 40 years after iconic music video (2025)

The cast behind widely-loved Wham!’s Last Christmas music video has reunited 40 years later to reflect on George Michael’s festive legacy.

There are few in the UK who won’t have watched the tragic Swiss-Alps cabin love story that conjures memories of snowy Christmases, cosy nights in with good friends and the birth of one of the most iconic festive tunes to this day.

The music video, filmed in 1984 and uploaded to YouTube 15 years ago sits at just shy of a whopping one billion views on the platform and is already number two in the UK charts this year, no doubt peaking just before Christmas.

This year marks not only 40 years since the music video first dropped but also eight years since Michael’s death aged 53 on Christmas day itself.

The full cast now in their 60s – Andrew Ridgeley, Pepsi DeMacque-Crockett, Shirlie Kemp, Jonny Fowler, Pat Fernandes, Cheryl Harrison and David Ridle – reunited at the filming location, Saas-Fee to take a trip down memory lane.

Pop duo Pepsi & Shirlie appeared on This Morning to discuss the landmark anniversary which will be explored in BBC Two’s upcoming documentary, Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped.

’40 years and it feels like yesterday,’ Pepsi reflected.

She continued: ‘The fact that we went back and we relived some of the moments with our old friends from the original video, we just fell right back in again.

‘But this time we got to appreciate Saas-Fee, the place where we actually filmed it and it was full of giggles still, lots of fun.

‘The community came out to sing the song with us. There was an unveiling of a monument, would you believe.’

Shirlie added: ‘But it hasn’t dated. The song hasn’t dated, and the video hasn’t dated,’ adding that she didn’t realise it would be this iconic.

‘You don’t really forward think anything, you’re just in the moment,’ she added.

The one-hour documentary ‘tells the story of how George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley’s Wham! turned one song into a cultural phenomenon.’

Described as a ‘nostalgic film brimming with memories’, it follows our cast of characters now as they revisit this iconic moment in music history and reveal exclusive, never-before-heard stories from the videoand rare and exclusive archive footage.

The tight-knit group of friends also recounted their fond memories of Michael, including why he loved Christmas so much.

Per The Sun, Shirlie said: ‘Christmas was bigger than him, so he could disguise himself in Christmas.

‘That was one of the reasons he loved that time of year, and why he liked to go carol singing.’

As Pepsi recalled: ‘He lived in a little mews house on Kensington High Street and he went, “Right, let’s go!”. He had all the wigs and everything.

‘We sang in front of a house and then we’d end up in a pub spending themoneythat we had collected. Then it was like, “OK, let’s go over there”, and it was like, “No, it’s too far to walk”.

‘So we got on a bus with the wigs and everything, and then we’d end up in another pub, causing havoc.’

We also hear from the Mayor of Saas-Fee who played the band’s driver on the shoot and ‘discover what happened to the iconic diamanté brooch’.

Music artists such asMary J Blige, Sir Bob Geldof, Neil Tennant and Sam Smith also share its impact on their lives and the industry.

In an official statement, Andrew said: ‘[Michael] considered writing a Christmas classic one of the great achievements of his career.

‘Only he will ever know quite what inspired him to such dizzying heights, but his songwriting genius led him to distil the quintessential essence of Christmas into a song whose breadth of appeal spans the generations.

‘Revisiting Saas Fee, four decades on, with some of the closest friends of my youth was a very special experience and one which I know Yog would have loved to have shared in.’

The Wham co-founder has previously spoken about the moment Michael came up with the idea when they visited his parent’s house.

‘We’d had a bite to eat and were sitting together relaxing with the television on in the background when, almost unnoticed, George disappeared upstairs for an hour or so,’ he reminisced to Smooth Radio.

‘When he came back down, such was his excitement, it was as if he had discovered gold which, in a sense, he had.’

Although the song is a certified Christmas hit now, it took 36 years to get there, only reaching the top spot in 2021 although this provided proof of its ‘timeless appeal and charm’.

Wham! Last Christmas Unwrapped airs on BBC Two on Saturday, December 14.

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