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Privacy NoticeFunerals are typically the only event where the guest of honour is unable to attend – but that’s all changed in new reality show Celebrity Send Off. In the three-part series, which will be available to stream on Channel 4, famous faces will plan their loved one’s funeral with help from Co-op Funeralcare experts. Celebrities, including Gogglebox couple Marcus Luther and Mica Ven and former athlete Kriss Akabusi and his daughter Shakira, will get the chance to see what could be in store for their send-offs once they’re gone. The series begins with Happy Mondays star Bez planning the funeral of his frontman and best friend Shaun Ryder, who admits that he didn’t even have a will before filming the show. “I don’t know if I’d have a quiet one or a party. I’ve never even thought about having a funeral or dying!” Shaun says.
Bez is tasked with planning Shaun’s funeral in new reality show Celebrity Send Off
(Image: Channel 4)
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The 61-year-old adds that it’s changed his mindset around death, particularly as the former heroin addict reckons he doesn’t have long left. “I’ve got 10 years left, maybe 15, so I should be thinking about it. My dad was dead by 74 and our kid is already dead,” he admits, referring to his late brother and bandmate Paul, who died in 2022 aged 58. “I’ve been to a few funerals lately.” Despite the grim subject matter, Shaun reveals that both he and Bez were keen to take part in Celebrity Send Off. “It seemed a bit macabre, a bit on the dark side, but me and Bez were up for it straight away. Although my kids and the missus thought it was a bit mad!” laughs Shaun, who shares two of his six children with wife Joanne. Shaun now knows that his funeral is in somewhat safe hands with Bez, who opts for a UFO-themed do in a nod to Shaun’s experience with extraterrestrial life. After holding a service filled with spaceship-shaped flowers, Bez decides to blast Shaun’s ashes off into space by strapping them to fireworks – before ending the night with a rave.
Bez opts for a UFO-themed service, to pay tribute to Shaun’s experience with aliens
(Image: Channel 4)
Would Shaun rest in peace after the funeral of Bez’s dreams? “I wouldn’t mind going up into the sky like a UFO – but I want to be buried,” he says. “I’m not getting cremated.” Shaun reveals that he’s been visited by UFOs since he was a teenager, having last spotted one just a few years ago. “I woke up one morning, about seven, and I looked out of the window and there was a UFO by our apple tree,” he says. “I could have been hallucinating but I hadn’t taken any drugs! It looked like a giant Airfix model. “Since I was 15, they haven’t left me alone. It might be because I’m neurodivergent – I’ve got ADHD.” It’s been more than 10 years since Shaun explored the world of aliens in his documentary Shaun Ryder On UFOs, but he admits that he turned down a sequel. “I would absolutely do it again. It’s just the next time I got asked to do one, it was about ghosts and I thought, ‘I’ll give that a miss.’”
Shaun with Joanne and two of their children, Pearl and Lulu
(Image: Instagram/Shaun Ryder)
Shaun is no stranger to reality shows and admits that he loved doing I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! so much that he didn’t hesitate to sign up for last year’s all-stars spin-off in South Africa. “The first time I did it in 2010, I didn’t want to come home. I would have stayed in the jungle like some Vietnam veteran,” he says. “I did it again 12 years later but my hips and everything in my back had gone. I was a bit wounded. When you’ve got a false hip and you’ve got to get in a hammock, it’s not really good.” Shaun also suffers with an underactive thyroid and reveals that he started taking Ozempic – a medicine used to treat diabetes and for weight management – after gaining pounds over lockdown. “It was so hard to get off what I put on in lockdown. I ballooned up to 15st and just couldn’t get rid of it, even with cycling,” he says. “I got on Ozempic and it’s great! “If I stop taking it, I’ll probably put it on again. I don’t eat that much anyway but because I’ve got an underactive thyroid, it makes you blow up. I’ve got no side effects and I don’t know anyone who gets them – and there are loads of people I know who are on it now.”
Shaun Ryder returned to I’m A Celebrity for the All Stars series last year
(Image: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Shaun Ryder and Bez on Celebrity Gogglebox together
(Image: Channel 4)
Is it big in the celebrity world? “I think so – but I’m not going to start naming names!” he laughs. Shaun is a regular on Celebrity Gogglebox with 60-year-old Bez, who he’s known since the Happy Mondays were founded in the early 80s. When they’re filming the show, Bez drives all the way from his home in Wales to Shaun’s place in Salford. “But he’s usually coming from somewhere else anyway because he is out every night DJing and he loves it,” Shaun says. “He is an unbelievable geezer. I’ve told him he has to calm down or he will drop dead one day.” But if he does, Shaun knows what kind of funeral to throw him. “He would want a massive party and the guest list would be half of Manchester. He’ll have it in a field somewhere in a big tent and have a rave. He’d love that.” Celebrity Send Off will be available to stream from Thursday 1st August on Channel 4. Story SavedYou can find this story in My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.Follow OK! MagazineFacebookTwitterCommentMore OnGoggleboxDocumentaryShakira
