If you have never been rick-rolled, consider yourself lucky. But the most famous bait-and-switch prank in internet history has reached a huge milestone.
The music video of Rick Astley’s 1987 song, “Never Gonna Give You Up,” passed 1 billion views on YouTube on Wednesday. The video became an internet classic in 2007 when the music video was used as a prank, where a person would click a link to something they wanted to see and instead was directed to the pounding drum solo that kicks off the British singer’s song.
People caught in the prank were said to be “rick-rolled.”
“So, I’ve just been told that ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ has been streamed a billion times,” Astley, 55, said in a video he posted on Twitter. “That is mind-blowing. The world is a wonderful and beautiful place, and I am very lucky.”
1 BILLION views for Never Gonna Give You Up on @YouTube ! Amazing, crazy, wonderful!
— Rick Astley (@rickastley) July 28, 2021
Rick ♥️https://t.co/mzyLznTr4R #NGGYU #NGGYU1Billion pic.twitter.com/p5xnn0OZcZ
As of late Wednesday night, the official YouTube video of “Never Gonna Give You Up” had been streamed 1,000,412,251 times.
Astley was originally annoyed by the idea of rickrolling, The Associated Press reported in 2016. However, his daughter convinced the singer that it was a cool concept that kept him in the spotlight decades after the song was a hit.
According to Billboard, “Never Gonna Give You Up” spent 24 weeks on the website’s Hot 100 and peaked at No. 1 on March 12, 1988, in the United States.
However, Astley was not a one-hit-wonder. “Together Forever” also hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, grabbing the top spot on June 18, 1988. Five of his songs hit the top 10.
To read more about Astley’s achievements in music, click here.
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