We’ve let him entertain us for 25 years. Now, Robbie Williams is adding a few more hours to that tally, thanks to the release of his four-part Netflix documentary series.
WATCH NOW: Robbie Williams chants ‘Warnie’ whilst on stage. Article continues after video.
“There were no rules,” Robbie, 49, says about filming the self-titled no-holds-barred doco, which premieres on November 8.
“I’m more likely than most people to leave everything in. I very rarely have said ‘That’s too much, leave it off.’”
In the series, expect Robbie, who will be in Australia next week for his XXV tour, to open up on…
HIS EARLY DAYS
Robbie was born in Stoke-on-Trent in the UK on February 13, 1974. His parents Pete and Janet divorced when he was three and he grew up with Janet and his sister Sally.
His upbringing wasn’t easy but Robbie was close to his parents, even if his mum was particularly strict.
“My mum is a tiny five- foot, three-inch woman and when I was a kid, all she had to do was look at me in a certain way and I’d immediately stop whatever I was doing and I’d never do it again,” Robbie told our sister publication Who last year.
Now that he is a parent himself – to Teddy, 11, Charlie, eight, Coco, four, and Beau, three, with his wife Ayda Field – Robbie says he’s “big on manners” and guards against spoilt behaviours.
“Entitlement [in children] repulses me,” he says.
FINDING FAME
Robbie was no fan of school, so when he joined British boy band Take That in 1990 as its youngest member at 16, he thought all his dreams had come true.
But he soon butted heads with lead singer Gary Barlow, as well as the group’s management team – and turned to drugs to cope with the overnight fame.
“I self-medicated,” Robbie has admitted.
Elton John arranged for Robbie to go to rehab while he recorded his first solo album after he turned up at the Rocketman’s home drunk.
WEIGHTY ISSUES
One of the documentary’s most shocking revelations regards the weight-related mental health battle Robbie has waged for years.
The star admitted in an interview with The Times last week that he’s recently lost 12 kilograms thanks to being prescribed “something like [the drug] Ozempic”. He added being overweight is “shockingly catastrophic for my mental health”.
Robbie has also battled depression, and anxiety and from 2006 to 2009 was agoraphobic. The condition was so bad he was housebound for three years.
“My career had gone stratospheric and taken me to Mars, and I needed some time to get myself back together,” he has explained of that time.
“It was my body and mind telling me I shouldn’t go anywhere. So I literally just sat and waited [to get well].”
LOVE IN THE LIMELIGHT
The documentary will also address the string of alleged high-profile relationships Robbie enjoyed ahead of his marriage to Ayda in 2010.
He was linked to stars including Spice Girls Melanie Chisholm and Geri Halliwell, Nicole Appleton from the pop group All Saints, and actress Lindsay Lohan.
Last year, Robbie told Paris Match magazine that, when he was younger, he thought dating other celebrities would be easy and fulfilling, but instead he found those encounters “disappointing”.
“I’m not saying these [celebrity] women were disappointing,” he said.
“But the relationships [non-famous people] have when you are 20 are not public – mine are forever.”
CO-STAR CONNECTIONS
Over the years, Robbie has collaborated with – and also been romantically linked to – A-listers including Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman, and Daryl Hannah.
Robbie duetted with Kylie on the 2000 hit ‘Kids’ and with Nicole on 2001’s ‘Somethin’ Stupid’, while Daryl Hannah starred alongside Robbie in the steamy video for ‘Feel’ in 2002.
Robbie’s denied any romantic entanglements with those stars. For her part, Daryl has said Robbie was “nice, sweet, and funny”.
It seems we’ll get to see all those qualities – and more – when Robbie Williams hits our screens.
