Right Said Fred anti-vaxxer Richard Fairbrass tests positive for Covid
NOT Too Sexy for Covid… Right Said Fred singer and anti-vaxxer Richard Fairbrass tests positive for coronavirus – but says he STILL won’t get jabbed
EXCLUSIVERichard Fairbrass fell ill last Saturday and was taken by ambulance to hospitalRight Said Fred frontman needed oxygen because he was struggling to breatheHe is now recovering at home after spending four nights under eye of doctors67-year-old’s Covid battle comes six months after he branded vaccine a ‘scam’
Right Said Fred frontman and anti-vaxxer Richard Fairbrass has contracted Covid-19 – but still has no intention of having the jab.
The I’m Too Sexy singer, 67, fell ill last Saturday and was taken by ambulance to Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire, needing oxygen because he was struggling to breathe.
After spending four nights under the watchful eye of doctors, he is now recovering at home. His Covid battle comes six months after he branded the vaccine a ‘scam’.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline outside his home in Windsor, Richard said: ‘I’ve had a bit of Covid, it wasn’t too bad. I was a little breathless, I felt very tired.
Right Said Fred brothers Fred Fairbrass and Richard Fairbrass at an anti-lockdown demonstration in Trafalgar Square in London on September 26, 2020
Richard Fairbrass of Right Said Fred performs on stage in Vienna in October 2016
‘But full credit to the NHS, they were non-judgemental and very open to how you wanted to be treated – and my treatment was just keeping my oxygen levels up for a week.’
But despite contracting the killer bug, Richard insists he will still not have the vaccine.
He said: ‘This vaccine is only for experimental use, it’s on trial until 2023, there is no long-term data on it – anyone who takes it is foolish. Come 2023 and everything is fine, I’ll do it then. I’m absolutely not going to have one now.’
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been given an ‘estimated study completion date’ of May 2023, but it is standard practice for safety monitoring to continue after a jab is approved for use.
Richard sparked controversy in February with his comments on the vaccine in which he admitted turning down the jab in fear it wasn’t ‘kosher’.
The nineties star and his brother Fred, who sold over 30million records during a career spanning three decades, also attended an anti-lockdown protest in Trafalgar Square last September and supported anti-mask campaigners via the duo’s official Twitter account.
However the pair refute suggestions they are ‘Covid-deniers’.
Speaking about the vaccine earlier this year, Richard said: ‘I believe the whole thing is a scam. I really do. I’ve been asked to have my vaccination, but I have refused.
‘I look at it in the same way that people were advised to keep smoking because it was good for the throat. Or, ‘Isn’t asbestos great — it’ll keep your farm clean’.
‘I’m not against the vaccination. If you want to do it, that’s fine. I have decided to wait a year or two to make sure everything’s kosher. That’s all it is.
‘But interesting enough, I’m not even allowed to say that these days. Even caution now is a sin.’
He also criticised the care home system for allowing elderly patients to return following their release from hospital at the start of the pandemic.
Fairbrass added: ‘People ask me, ‘Do I not buy into the fact that it’s about protecting vulnerable people?’ But if it was about vulnerable people we wouldn’t have been filling the care homes with people from hospital, right in the early days.
‘There’s an assisted living centre near me. There’s a lady there that I know really well. We’ve become friends in the last three years. She’s 81. Her name is Grace.
‘Their Christmas party was cancelled. The dementia patients haven’t been out of their rooms since March and it’s been horrific for them.
‘The importance to people at that age of communication, of simple human contact cannot be overstated and it’s a kind of wickedness that is blind to that reality.’
Fairbrass’s stance on masks was equally dismissive.
Fred and Richard Fairbrass, pictured in 2018, refuted suggestions they are ‘Covid-deniers’
A tweet from Right Said Fred’s official Twitter account ‘got the bed-wetters at it’, the duo said
A tweet from Right Said Fred’s official Twitter account in June read: ‘I would like to thank everyone who is still wearing a mask.
‘It saves me a great deal of time. Your mask tells me I don’t need to talk to you, know you, work with you, or try to understand your mumblings.
‘You are superfluous to requirements. Many thanks.’
The account then retweeted dozens of anti-mask statements and links, referred to the ‘cult-of-Covid’ before being slated by social media followers for their views.
The duo admitted the tweet ‘got the bed-wetters at it’ and said ‘the masked army are out in force.
They later tweeted: ‘So many angry tweeters today. You’ve complied for 16 months, followed nonsensical rules implemented by an immoral and corrupt government. You should be angry at yourselves.’
Richard also told MailOnline that Right Said Fred will not play any live shows while audiences are segregated.
He added: ‘Music is a community, it’s about bringing people together. Any artist who doesn’t get that has no business being on stage.’
