I’ve lost weight and I berate myself less. After 25 years, I’m happy says Robbie Williams
YESTERDAY was the start of a new dawn for Robbie Williams – as he celebrated the release of his latest album marking 25 years as a solo artist.
Preparing for his return to the spotlight has been no easy feat.
But cometh the hour, cometh the man, and Robbie appears to be reborn — slimmer, fitter and more on song than he has ever been.
The superstar from Stoke says: “I have lost weight but it is a constant fight. Inside me there’s a giant person.”
Sitting in a hotel suite in London he is in great shape and shows off his new physique in a black vest.
Robbie, 48, adds: “My whole being and my whole body wants me to go in the opposite direction and be morbidly obese.
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“At the moment I am just eating less. It is a constant slog and it is not a natural way of being.
“For me, what is normal is being twice this size.
"Thank God for vanity, and thank God for my job, because if I didn’t do what I do for a living I dread to think what I would look like and what I would become.”
Robbie’s battle with his weight and his addictive nature are well documented, and the 6ft 1in singer has been open and honest about being hooked on sugar, as well as drink and drugs.
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Now sober for more than two decades, he says the addictive side of his personality still exists.
After quitting smoking in 2019 he jokes he is now hooked on nicotine gum, and he pops two pieces into his mouth as he settles into his chair for the interview.
His weight, he adds, will be an issue he will struggle to control for the rest of his life.
Massive spotlight
He says: “For me, it is overweight and full of shame, and then you do something extreme to get to the weight you’re happy with.
“But then you’re getting calories in your body to sustain what it has to do and then you get fatigued.
“I have an addictive nature that finds a loophole in sugar. I have never been able to maintain a perfect adherence to an abstinence from sugar and refined flour and all that stuff.
"There is no balance — moderation doesn’t exist.
“I do not have the ability to make that happen. It is either fat or thin.”
It has been three years since Robbie’s last album, and his new record, XXV, reveals his vocals are in just as good a shape as they were when he first found fame in boyband Take That in 1990 aged just 16.
As well as re-recording some of his biggest hits with acclaimed Dutch orchestra the Metropole Orkest, including Angels and Millennium, Robbie has four new tracks on the new album’s deluxe version — Disco Symphony, More Than This, The World And Her Mother and Home Thoughts From Abroad.
It also features his new single Lost, which has fast become a fan favourite.
Despite Robbie’s huge solo success, with seven No1 singles and 13 No1 albums, he reveals he is still learning to accept his talent.
He says: “There are lots of people who dig what I do but there are an awful amount of people who think I am the worst thing on the planet ever since that massive spotlight fell on to me.
“Drugs have taken me to some faraway places and, contrary to popular belief, my ego is the opposite of ego.
“I hated myself and I thought I couldn’t sing and looked like s**t. If anyone thought I was wandering round with an inflated sense of self-importance it is actually the opposite.
“If there are a great deal of people saying, ‘You’re a c*’, you start to think you are, even if you’re like, ‘But I’m not though’.
“If there was an Olympics for self-hatred I would represent my country.”
In part, Robbie’s steps forward in self-acceptance are down to his family.
He married American actress and Loose Women panellist Ayda Field, 43, in August 2010 and they have four children — Teddy, nine, Charlie, seven, Colette, four, and two-year-old Beau.
Robbie continues: “I had always thought that if you don’t lacerate or puncture your own ego you become an awful narcissist. But there might be a happy ground.
“I think there is less berating of myself going on in my head. As British people, we think it is right to lacerate any sense of self-worth or achievement.
“Maybe with this anniversary there is a chance for a pause, and I can look back and go, ‘Well done’.
“It ebbs and flows, life, and at the moment the flow is not ebbing. I am happy, I am doing better than OK.”
The next big change is deciding where he and his family will settle.
This year he sold his multi-million-pound homes in Los Angeles, Zurich and Wiltshire, leaving a £17.5million family home in London.
The decision on whether to remain there is a hot topic round the Williams dinner table.
He says: “I find that being constantly in limbo is better for my psyche. It is best for me if I keep moving, so we are nowhere.
“We are not in LA, we are not in Switzerland, we are not in St Tropez and we are not in Ibiza.
“Now I am back in Blighty and I am happy to be back in Blighty. But I am always happy to leave.
“My wife insists our oldest, and all our children, should experience some kind of high school.
“I don’t believe in that, but she does. So by the time Teddy is 13 we have to be somewhere. We have three years.
“It is difficult to know what to do — my job doesn’t exist anywhere, it is everywhere.
Great gratitude
“I love my job, I love providing, but I don’t want my daughter to be 22 and never have met me.
“So that is another part of the equation I am trying to work out.”
But while the topic of where to live is still up in the air, retirement is one subject that is definitely off the cards — as stepping back from music appears to be the last thing Robbie would do.
He says the pandemic and lockdown made him realise he is not ready to take his foot off the pedal professionally.
He continues: “This thing you’ve noticed in me, which is genuinely happening, is that you can have a laissez-faire attitude towards your job.
“You turn up to work and expect a stadium of people to be there and not think much about it.
“Having had Covid and the usual market possibly not coming back ever, after it did come back I look at these venues full of people, or look at a venue with empty seats thinking they will be full of people, and get blown away.
“What has happened to me in my life . . . I have great gratitude that I get to do the greatest job in the world. It feels really good.”
As well as gearing up for live dates across the UK and Europe, Robbie has a big-screen biopic in the works and a new docuseries about his life being made by Netflix.
And though his hands are definitely more than full at the moment, fans will be delighted that he says a reunion with his Take That buddies is a possibility.
I have great gratitude that I get to do the greatest job in the world. It feels really good
Robbie Williams
Bandmate Gary Barlow confirmed to The Sun this year how the group — which includes Mark Owen and Howard Donald — were planning on new music next year and a live tour in 2024.
So could Robbie help to make it all happen?
He says: “One date is undoable, one song might be manageable.
“I would much prefer to do one album and one tour, but it’s not on the horizon.
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“There is an invisible line which keeps us together and brings us back together when we are apart.
“If we all stay healthy, at some point we will ride again, and God willing we all do.”