Tony Hadley helped a 32-year-old railway worker from Singapore reclaim some of his prize money, after he lost out on $10,000 for apparently mispronouncing the star’s name.
The Celebrity Name Drop on Gold 905 features 14 celebrities, each saying one word of this phrase: “Gold 9-0-5, the station that sounds good, and makes you feel good.”
To win the $10,000 Singapore Dollar jackpot, listeners must identify all 14 stars behind the voiceover – but after listing the names, Muhammad Shalehanhe was told he only gave 13 correct stars, and so missed out on the prize.
However, when another listener later gave the same answers and won, he was left stunned.
Muhammad contacted the radio station and he was informed he’d mispronounced the Gold hitmaker’s name, hence his loss. However, determined to prove his victory, and believing his answer should have been accepted, he proceeded to email the Spandau Ballet star’s manager to get the singer’s verdict.
“I wasn’t expecting at all for him to reply,” Muhammad told BBC news. “I would have thought Tony Hadley had better things to do than reply to me.”
And on May 10, the singer, who’s currently in lockdown in the UK, sent a video reply, saying: “Hi Muhammad. I’ve listened back to the tape, and as far as I’m concerned, you pronounced my name absolutely correctly.
“You might have had a slight accent, but as far as I’m concerned, you said my name correctly, so you should be entitled to whatever the prize was.”
The Gold singer told the BBC: “To penalise him on a… well it wasn’t even a mispronunciation… So that’s why I said in my video – I’m going to back this guy.”
After deciding Muhammad had won “fair and square”, he decided to send the video and, upon receiving Hadley’s response, officials from the station offered the man a “goodwill gesture”, which is believed to be $5,000.
“I did listen to it several times, just to be really, really sure,” Tony added. “And I thought – hold on, this guy is really genuine, it’s a lot of money, he’s done incredibly well to get to that point.”
Tony could be set to do another good deed soon – Martin Kemp recently teased Spandau Ballet could reunite for a special NHS concert.
