Since his teenage years in the British boy band Take That, Robbie Williams became the center of attention, with cameras following his every move. That constant presence of cameras offered the British pop superstar a unique opportunity: to sit back and revisit his decades as an artist, seeing images of himself over the years and the rollercoaster of his career, from the euphoric highs to the traumatic minimums.
In a new interview with the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen to it in full below), Williams talks about the four-episode Netflix docuseries. Robbie Williams – from director Joe Pearlman and Ridley Scott Associates – which finds the singer-songwriter sitting on his bed in his underwear, observing his life through revealing archival footage.
“When Netflix and Ridley Scott's company come and say, 'We'd like to make a documentary about you and have it be on the Netflix platform,' you know, I'm an attention seeker by trade,” Williams says. “And I feel honored. What else would someone seeking attention say other than, 'Yes, please'?
Although it was an easy yes for Williams, that doesn't mean it was an easy process, as filming took place for 25 days straight for up to six or seven hours a day. “Not many people on the planet have done anything like this, so there are no support groups for, you know, trauma policing,” she says. “But it was very interesting, leaving the room every day and then going to bed with my wife and trying to explain to her how she feels. It has only become therapeutic since its release. It wasn't therapeutic at the time. “It was just traumatic.”
One of the biggest takeaways from the film is how much Williams struggled with mental health issues over the years and how her struggles often fell on deaf ears.
“There wasn't really any talk about mental health,” he says. “And when I talked about it back then, they made fun of me for complaining or complaining. And that further isolated me into a place of isolation, depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia. And agoraphobia. And all the obias, you know, and then on top of that they tell you that you shouldn't talk about it, because how dare you? She made it even worse.”
Williams' biggest challenges came when he was touring the world, often taking frequent steroid injections just to survive the physical toll that performing took on his body, and then dealing with the consequences of those drugs the next day. We asked him about artists like Taylor Swift who took that challenge a step further by putting on three-hour-plus concerts, and he was stunned by the length of those shows.
“Why would you do three and a half hour series?” he asks. “Listen, I love Taylor Swift. But if you take Taylor out of the equation and whoever (Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Taylor, whoever) why would you do that to yourself? And why would you do that to an audience?
“It's amazing that they are able to do that, especially people in their 80s,” he adds. “But, you know, what do I want as a fan? I want to hear all the hits. And I want to entertain myself for 90 to 100 minutes. And then I want to go home happy. I don't have the attention to see anything for three hours. If I watch a movie that is now two and a half or three hours long, I don't watch it. “I don't have it in me.”
He Robbie Williams The docuseries ends with Williams returning to the road for his 25th World Tour, which, along with a new greatest hits collection, celebrates 25 years of his solo career and just concluded last month, and the artist says he's still reaching an agreement with life as an interpreter. “This tour I just did has been the most successful for me mentally and emotionally,” he says. “And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I can override or befriend anxiety. But I'm not there yet. When it comes to touring. I don't know how to not let it hurt me in some way. Now listen: that's not complaining, because financially it's incredible. Emotionally, it's incredible. Physically and mentally, it's no wonder people end up in emergency rooms or rehab after or during tours. The toll this takes on you is still a phenomenon I am trying to overcome.”
Our interview also touches on his new perspective as a father of four (“When my kids are 16… I think I'll realize exactly what I should and shouldn't have been going through at that particular time,” he says of his childhood days. Take That), his life of relative anonymity in the United States (“I could be Bruce Wayne in Los Angeles and Batman in the rest of the world”) and his New Year's resolutions for 2024.
Speaking of New Year's resolutions, for the first Pop Shop Podcast of the year, Katie and Keith also share some of our pop music resolutions, including our hopes for Dua Lipa, Madonna, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Barbra Streisand and more.
He Billboard Pop Store Podcast is your one stop shop for everything pop on BillboardWeekly charts. You can always count on lively discussion of the latest pop news, fun chart statistics and stories, new music, and interviews with music stars and people from the pop world. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can listen to BillboardWest Coast Executive Digital Director Katie Atkinson and BillboardKeith Caulfield's CEO, Charts and Data Trading every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the program. on Billboard.com.)
thanks to our partners at www.billboard.com
