Sam Ryder is said to have been forced to axe his Christmas music video after Wizzard’s Roy Wood threatened to sue the singer.
The ‘Space Man’ singer, 34, had shot footage of him dressed up as Wizzard frontman Roy Wood, 77, for a promo for his new single ‘You’re Christmas To Me’, wearing blue face paint and a red and white striped hat – just like Roy in the clip for his 1973 festive smash ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’.
The Sun has reported Roy then threatened to take legal action against Sam for dressing as him in a video.
It said Sam shared, and quickly deleted, a snippet from the axed video on Instagram and wrote: “Our Christmas present to you: The music video you’ll probably never see because we’d get sued.”
Sam added: “Love you Roy Wood, still think you’re a legend.”
In cryptic quotes about the video before his now-deleted post, Sam had said: “All I can say is, no one will ever see it, because of reasons beyond our control.
“But there is another video coming that we had to do very last-minute. It’s a damage-control video.”
Sam is currently behind in the race for the Christmas No1, with the latest chart figures showing Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ has sold 32,435 copies since Friday (15.12.23), while Sam’s festive offering is at No2 with sales of 28,288.
Sam had told The Sun about the circumstances that led to his festive music video being canned and a new video being hastily filmed: “We ain’t said anything, I can’t confirm or deny.
“All I can say is, no one will ever see it, because of reasons beyond our control.
“But there is another video coming that we had to do very last minute.
“It’s a damage-control video. I made it in about eight hours. But the original, I can’t confirm it even exists.”
