Born in Bermondsey, south London, he was brought up by his black single mother, Monica Beadle, a counsellor, who was a lesbian. She was born in Jamaica and moved to Britain when she was 12. She was the first black child in her school in Peckham. When she was pregnant with Rikki at the age of 16 her mother had just died and her sister was throwing her out into the street. Rikki was brought up with a brother, Gary, 4 years younger, and a sister, Carleen, 8 years younger.

The BBC current affairs television programme, Nationwide, made a documentary about him when he was a child performer in Bermondsey, south London, in the 1970s. When he was 17 he did a capella concerts at the Gay's The Word bookshop in Bloomsbury, London. At this time he was also going to gay pubs and clubs and was involved with the Gay Liberation Front (GLF).

He was subsequently a dancer, a cabaret artist, a rock musician, an actor, a choreographer, and a director. He has performed worldwide, and has written plays for BBC Radio 4 and Channel 4 television. He was proud of his performance in the early 1990s in the film Sirens in which he played Blue, a punky Scouse heroin junkie. In 1994 he wrote the screenplay for Nigel Finch's film Stonewall, about the Stonewall Rebellion. This won him awards at film festivals in London and San Francisco.

His profile was considerably raised in Britain in March 2001 with the Channel 4 television series Metrosexuality which he wrote, produced, and directed, and in which he played a lead role. In 2001 he adapted Boy George's autobiography Take It Like A Man for a BBC film.