Rick Astley approves of Greta Thunberg’s cover of Never Gonna Give You Up

19 October 2021, 12:57

By Radio X

@RadioX

The 80s icon praised the climate change activist's rendition of his iconic hit at the Climate Live concert.

Rick Astley has shared his approval of Greta Thunberg’s recent performance of his hit Never Gonna Give You Up in Stockholm.

Greta was staging the Climate Live concert over the weekend and surprised the audience when her usual environmental speech suddenly ended on the line “We’re no strangers to love…”

Understanding the reference, the crowd cheered as Rick Astley’s ‘rickroll’ 1987 hit started playing and Greta and her co-host, Fridays for Future's Andreas Magnusson, broke into dance and started singing along to the track.

Watch the moment below:

READ MORE: Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up reaches one billion YouTube views

Now, Rick Astley himself has given the performance his seal of approval. Sharing the clip on Twitter, Rick commented in Swedish: “Fantastic and Tack så mycket! Rick x”, which translates to “thanks so much.”

The message was shared alongside a TikTok of the event, where young activists can be seen singing and dancing along to the song.

Greta told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: "At the end of the day, we are just teenagers fooling around with each other, not just the angry kids the media often portrays us as."

Although it was Greta’s first time performing in public, it’s perhaps no surprise she’s a natural - her mother is Malena Emman, an opera singer who represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song contest back in 2009.

Climate Live is a series of simultaneous climate concerts in over 20 concerts on October 16 and 23, 2021, with the aim of raising awareness and putting pressure on global leaders to address the climate crisis.

READ MORE: Can you get 100% of these lyrics from 1987 correct?

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