17/8/03
He has a huge ego, is a compulsive womaniser and a recovering addict. Even Robbie Williams admits he’s no catch. So why does a woman who should know better think this reprobate is such a lovely boy?
Like a lot of women, my mother is completely smitten with Robbie Williams. I have tried to explain what a ratbag the British pop star is. That his drug and alcohol fuelled behaviour makes headlines, his visits to rehab are infamous, that he urinates in his video clips and writes songs about shagging prostitutes. But my mother won’t have it. She thinks anyone who looks that adorable –and can sing Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin songs with such finesse –must be “a lovely boy”. So how has such a self-destructive bad boy seduced teenagers and 50-year-old women the world over? “I think all women love cheeky boys,” Williams says, “they just can’t help themselves.”
About Robbie and My Mum -Sunday magazine
If anyone has turned cheekiness into a multi-million-dollar phenomenon it’s Williams. His abilty to incite audiences invites comparisons to Elvis Presley. Whether he’s crooning Sinatra songs in a suit or belting out pop anthems in skin-tight leather, he knows how to make a crowd come alive. It applies whether he is playing to 100,000 people or 30.
It’s a sunny summer’s day in London and I’m standing in a small room at Capital Radio’s London headquarters surrounded by a group of anxious competition winners. Their prize is a rare and intimate audience with the man himself. Accompanied by just a keyboard and acoustic guitar, Williams will perform some of the hit songs from his latest album Escapology in a boardroom for less than 30 people.
As Williams strides into the room looking devilish, a teenage girl squatting on the carpet closest to him jumps to her feet and bursts into tears. “What are you crying for, darling,” he says hugging her. “I’m not dead or anything – which is a bloody miracle when you think about it.”
Over the next 40 minutes, we’re treated to not just a flawless vocal performance, but some hilarious self-depreciation and flirtation. One minute he’s singing a love ballad with sincerity, the next he’s hanging out the window shouting to people on the street below: “Hello down there, I’m Robbie Williams. I’m a big pop star, I am.” Just as quickly, he turns his attention back to the room. “They’re all Japanese tourists so they didn’t give a toss. I’m not very big in Japan!”
As he surveys the various posters of female pop stars on the boardroom walls, he quips: “I think I’ve shagged most of these birds at one time or another. I can’t be sure, though, I can’t remember certain sections of my adult life. That’s why you should never do drugs kids.” Even a PR chick dressed for attention gets it. “Do you have a boyfriend, darling?” And when she says she does: “Do you have a sister then?” One can only imagine what a little bugger he must have been as a child.
Williams was born 30 minutes south of Manchester on February 13, 1974. His parents split when he was a toddler and Robbie and his older sister Sally were raised by their mother, Janet, who ran a local pub. From an early age, Williams gained a reputation for mischievous behaviour and flunked his high school exams with confidence. “I’ve always been the kind of person that is very easily distracted and easily bored,” he tells me. He did manage to make a positive impression on the drama department, though, and regularly made starring appearances in the school musicals. His interpretation of Oliver Twist’s Artful Dodger was apparently a stand out.
After dropping out of school, Williams fumbled his way through menial jobs before his mother spotted an advertisement for a new boy band and encouraged her son to audition. Williams joined Take That as a 16-year-old in 1990. In the early ‘90’s the band set a UK record, clocking up eight No.1 singles. But Williams began to feel confined by its squeaky-clean image and irritated by the fact that fellow member Gary Barlow had been anointed the main man. Williams directed his restless energies into getting wasted with the Gallagher brothers from Oasis and quit Take That.
In August 1996, he released his first solo single – a cover version of George Michael’s Freedom. It was a hit in the UK, but Williams was still in the midst of a drug and alcohol haze. Finally he checked himself into rehab, and by December ’97 he was clean and scaling the charts once again with the single Angels.
Over the next few years, Williams’ album sales reached 30 million, he played sell-out tours throughout Europe and the UK and courted some of the world’s most famous women, including former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and New Zealand model Rachel Hunter. There were also artistic collaborations with Kylie Minogue (on Kids in 2001) and Nicole Kidman, who sang with Williams on his hugely successful album of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra covers, Swing When You’re Winning. Despite photographs of Williams leaving Kidman’s hotel during the wee hours of the morning, he has flatly denied a romance with the actress, claiming he was “too shy” to close the deal.
Several weeks after our boardroom audience, I get the chance to speak to Williams more intimately on the phone. His tone is immediately warm, friendly and relaxed. He is in LA where he has been spending a lot of time trying to break into the biggest and most fickle of all music markets. Already a multi-millionaire, he clearly isn’t doing it for the money. “On one hand it’s absolutely superb that I can walk my dog in this country and nobody gives a toss,” he says. “On the other hand my ego is saying, ‘We must conquer all’.” There are also rumours circulating that Williams is in discussions to launch an acting career. “Part of me thinks it’s so obvious I couldn’t be bothered.”
There was a time not so long ago when Williams couldn’t be bothered doing anything. After releasing the Swing album in November 2001, he took some time off, focusing his energies on staying drug and alcohol free and attending regular AA meetings in LA last year. “You have to understand that I have been doing this career thing for 15 years now and, apart from being completely bored with it, I was bloody exhausted.”
As well as teaching Williams “not to make important decisions when you’re really tired”, the sabbatical rejuvenated his enthusiasm. “I fell in love with the whole process of recording and performing music again,” he says. “When it came time to make the next album, I couldn’t wait to get going again.”
Williams’ latest single, Something Beautiful, shimmers with optimism – “if you’re lost, hurt, tired or lonely, something beautiful will come your way.” Now that the 29-year-old is a clean living, highly acclaimed pop god, there’s only one thing missing from his life. “I haven’t found the right girl yet,” he says, feigning disappointment, “but I’d really like to.” I ask Williams why the search for Ms-right-for-Robbie has had so many false starts.
“Well, the thing is, celebrity people just don’t seem to last long in relationships for some reason,” he says in a contemplative tone. “I’m not really sure why that is.” I offer to enlighten him and he seems genuinely interested in my opinion.
I explain that for a relationship to really work, both people have to make the other person their first priority. But most celebrity types pay a lot of people to treat them as though they are the most important person in the universe. So when you have two people accustomed to that sort of coddling, coming to terms with a tricky little concept called “compromise” often ends in, well, divorce, or endless break-ups.
Silence. For a few seconds I’m wondering whether Williams is still on the line. “Bloody hell Dr Freud,” he says finally, “you could be right.”
He concedes he might not be quite ready for that compromising caper just yet, but insists he really does look forward to raising a family one day. He describes playing with his infant nephew, Freddy, as “blissful” – not to mention cost effective. “I used to pay a lot of money to feel that high.”
So is fatherhood a goal? “Absolutely,” he says, with genuine passion. “I think I’d be a great dad, very understanding, if you know what I mean.” In that case, I ask him how he’d react if a 21-year-old version of himself turned up to whisk his teenage daughter away for a weekend. “What a bloody depressing question,” he says after a long pause, “I’d castrate the bastard!”
The lyrics on Williams’ multi-platinum Escapology highlight the dichotomous nature of his personality – “so unimpressed but so in awe, such a saint but such a whore”. On one hand he just wants to “feel real love”, on the other he wants to “get another drink in” and “come undone”.
Is Williams really as bad as some of his lyrics suggest? “A lot of the songs on the album are meant to depict my life the way I believe people believe it to be. In reality I’m not that much of a bad boy at all.”
So you’ve never “sung songs that were lame and slept with girls on the game”?
Actually, yes…and yes.”
So are we going to see a better behaved Robbie Williams from now on? “Well…probably not actually.”
After 40 minutes of repartee with Williams, I’m enchanted, but still confused. He is as self-effacing as he is self-absorbed and is most comfortable poking fun at his ego while at the same time feeding it. I tell him he’s either a genius or a pathological attention seeker. (“In this business, darling, it helps to be a bit of both.”) He sings and jokes about the number of women he has been to bed with, but is lost for words when asked how many people in the world love him unconditionally. “Well, there’s me mum,” he manages finally. “She’s a bloody angel that woman.”
Since we’re on the subject, I can’t resist telling Williams that my own mother – an overly enthusiastic fan – has come over to follow me around the house throughout our entire phone call. Then something typically Robbie happens – he asks to speak to her.
Without thinking I hand over the phone to my mother, who grabs it with frightening confidence. For the next 10 minutes Williams and my mother exchange a stream of compliments, while I stand in the background making that irate wind-up signal publicists usually make at me.
“He’s going to make another album of those Frank Sinatra songs just for me,” says my beaming, 55-year-old (and happily married) mother as she hands the phone back. “I told you he was a lovely boy.”
