Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder used his appearance on the new reality series Celebrity Send Off to reveal he has 10 years left in his life. According to the Mirror, Ryder detailed his funeral planning as part of the group working with Co-op Funeralcare. Ryder is the starter for the series, with his loyal bandmate and hypeman Bez helping to plan his final send-off.
“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!” Ryder says on the show. “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…I’ve been to a few funerals lately.”
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The kid Ryder is referring to is his late brother and band member Paul who died in 2022 at 58 years old. “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!” Ryder shares two children with his wife Joanne.
In the series, Bez goes with a UFO-themed funeral service, pulling from Ryder’s UFO experiences throughout his life. The service will have spaceship-shaped flowers and if it were up to Bez, he’d send Ryder into space on some fireworks and close the night with a rave.
“I wouldn’t mind going up into the sky like a UFO – but I want to be buried,” Ryder laughed. “I’m not getting cremated.”
The funeral plan is fitting, though. Ryder hosted a documentary called Shaun Ryder on UFOs, claiming he’s been a focus for alien visitors since he was a teenager. “I woke up one morning, about seven, and I looked out of the window and there was a UFO by our apple tree,” Ryder 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,” he added.
