Too Sexy to Last: The Right Said Fred Story

Guy Holmes popped the tape into the cassette player in his car and waited. The British record promoter was eager to hear new acts, but knew that the majority of them weren’t going to be good or unique enough to cut through the noise of the worldwide music scene. In 1991, it was still a multibillion dollar business, not yet smothered by file-sharing. Success was determined by decision-makers at record labels and radio stations, whose tastes were often mercurial and hard to anticipate.

The cassette had been given to Holmes by a friend, a 19-year-old named Tamzin Aronowitz. She was dating Rob Manzoli, the guitarist of an act called Right Said Fred, and insisted the group—which also consisted of brothers Richard and Fred Fairbrass—had a hook. He listened.

I’m too sexy for my car Too sexy for my car Too sexy by far And I’m too sexy for my hat Too sexy for my hat What do you think about that?

Holmes was driving with a friend, a man of Russian descent who had been drinking vodka for most of the night. As Richard Fairbrass sang about other things he was too sexy for—Milan, Japan, parties, his shirt—Holmes noticed his passenger bouncing in his seat and mouthing the words.

This might be a dumb song, Holmes thought. A very dumb song. But it’s catchy.

By 1992, “I’m Too Sexy” was the number one tune in 32 countries, including the United States, and the Fairbrass brothers went from being gym managers and sporadic musicians to the kitschy pop act of the moment. But they wondered whether people knew they were in on the joke, and whether they had the ability to survive the plague that had taken down so many talented musicians before them—the affliction of being an overnight success.

Richard Fairbrass was born in East Grinstead, Sussex in 1953. His brother, Fred, followed three years later. Raised in a relatively well-off environment by Peter and Mary Fairbrass, Richard thought he might wind up becoming a politician; Fred was more interested in athletics. By their late teens, both had gravitated toward music, forgoing any thought of a formal career in exchange for odd jobs and band practice that led to small gigs with London punk bands. At one performance, an irate—or possibly enthused—fan managed to pee on Richard.

From 1977 to 1987, they performed under a variety of names, including Trash Flash and Money, and landed a series of not-quite-breakthrough gigs. Richard got a job as a session musician for three David Bowie music videos, while Fred had a stint backing up Bob Dylan. Their act wavered from punk to rock to a blend of the two.

After an unsuccessful tour of New York, the brothers returned to London in 1988. Both took to going to the gym to build their bodies back up and shaved their heads. They also met Rob Manzoli, a guitarist, and Brian Pugsley, who had access to computer synthesizers that the brothers thought might evolve their sound into something more palatable than their acoustic act.

Jamming in Pugsley’s apartment one night over a bass line inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Richard took off his shirt—it was hot in there—and proclaimed he was “too sexy” for it. From that line evolved an entire hook that played on the narcissism the brothers had witnessed both in the gym and among the models in New York’s fashion scene. The song wasn’t about the band thinking they were too sexy, but about the self-absorbed egos who really believed it. Supported by a backing track from a DJ named Tommy D, "I'm Too Sexy" was polished into an anthem about vanity.

Now going by Right Said Fred—a name they took from a 1962 Bernard Cribbins song about furniture movers—the trio started shopping the single to record labels. No one was interested. The only bite was from Holmes, who tried to entice executives but was met with the same resistance. In a self-admitted act of “belligerence,” Holmes produced copies of the single himself, while his secretary, Aronowitz, became the group’s manager. It was a homegrown operation, one in which the group was urged to formally record the final version of the song in an unheated studio because it was cheaper.

“I’m Too Sexy” made its way into the hands of producers at the BBC and Capital Radio. “I’m not sure if this is good or it’s crap,” one radio producer said, then played it anyway. The song spread quickly, making its way to the top of the most-requested queues in England. A DJ from Miami was on vacation in Europe when he heard it. From there, it spread to the United States and abroad, topping the Billboard Top 100 chart for three weeks straight and becoming a perpetual club selection well into 1992. (It only rose to number two in the UK, trumped by Bryan Adams’s “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.”) The pop icon of the era, Madonna, announced she was sexually interested in Fred. Truant students announced they were “too sexy” for school. Stewardesses asked the brothers if they weren’t “too sexy” to be on a plane, a variation on a joke that they would wind up hearing thousands of times.

“It’s part of the job,” Fred said of the jokes.

Almost immediately, Right Said Fred underwent what industry veterans would call an "image makeover." A fashion designer squeezed them into vinyl outfits, fishnet shirts, and various half-clothed stage uniforms. Though they were in their early thirties, they fibbed and told reporters they were in their early twenties. They were advised to ease up on the weightlifting, as their pumped-up physiques were deemed too frightening for general public consumption.

Holmes produced their first album, 1992's Up, and helped them spin off two more successful songs: “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” and “Deeply Dippy.” They made the requisite MTV appearances and fended off speculation that “I’m Too Sexy” was a sign of them being the prototypical one-hit wonder.

Unfortunately, "I'm Too Sexy" wound up proving exactly that. But the brothers would argue that it was not their fault—it was Holmes’s.

Up had taken just five weeks to record. Their sophomore album, Sex and Travel, took nine months. Released in 1993, it failed to capture the public’s attention in the way “I’m Too Sexy” seemed to reverberate with kids, teens, and adults.

The brothers would later point the finger at Holmes, claiming he had chosen to release the wrong single tracks; Holmes countered that Richard and Fred had final say over what got the “A” side of the records. Subsequent albums followed—nine in all—but none ever reached the heights of their event-filled summer of 1991.

“I’m Too Sexy” remains a popular jab at people who indulge in vanity, and the brothers still perform it as part of their regular gigs. (Manzoli left the band in the mid-1990s.) They approved a new version targeting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad (who was revealed to have had the song on his playlist) and debuted it on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in 2014. (“I’m too sexy for this shirt” became “You’re too awful for this Earth.”) To this day, however, Fred believes there’s still some confusion over whether the song is to be taken seriously. He tried to clarify it for Rolling Stone in 2017.

“They didn’t get the cynicism and the joke,” he said. “But the idea of the song is that you obviously can’t be too sexy, right? No one can be too sexy.”