When in just a few weeks Robbie Williams steps under the lights of Murrayfield on the first night of his tour, he has one clear objective. “I want to make people happy and transport them somewhere else…if only for a couple of hours,” he says.
But the singer knows he has more than his army of devoted fans to satisfy. In fact, his biggest critic appears to be his 10-year-old son Charlie.
“I did this gig in Munich to 125,000 people, the place was going wild, and I’m singing Let Me Entertain You ….but Charlie has just got his head down playing on his iPad,” Robbie laughs.
“But at Hyde Park last year, I came off, and afterwards, he was just looking at me with these wide eyes, like he had a moment of recognition that his dad was somebody other than somebody that tells him to stop misbehaving or the dad police.”
Robbie is in terrific spirits as I chat to him from his home in Los Angeles, where as well as Charlie, he lives with wife Ayda, daughters Teddy, 12, and Coco, six, and son Beau, four. Charismatic yet a deep thinker in equal measure, he very much wears his heart on his sleeve.
But even so, it takes me by surprise when he admits – straight off the bat – how he was recently forced to confront his first bout of depression for more than 10 years. “The year started with some ill mental health, which I haven’t had for a very, very long time,” he says “I was sad, I was anxious, I was depressed.”
Thankfully, the dark cloud has now lifted. But there’s no doubt it’s been a particularly tough time for Robbie and Ayda, of late, whose parents are all suffering with ill health.
His beloved mum Janet has dementia, while his dad Pete has Parkinson’s, and his mother-in-law Gwen, is battling cervical cancer. “My wife would say, ‘if your depression could talk, what would it say?” Robbie explains. “It wasn’t saying, ‘it’s my mum, or dad or your mum.’
“It wasn’t saying ‘it’s life, or tickets or the tour or the pressure or whatever.’ None of that. It just is. It’s just a pervasive feeling.”
Robbie says that he found its return particularly hard to deal with when he thought he had his mental health under control. He was first diagnosed with depression in his twenties, and has undergone high-profile battles with addiction, anxiety and agoraphobia.
“It’s been about ten years…I thought I was at the other end of the arc,” he says. “I thought this was the end of my story, and that I would just go walking into this marvelous wonderland. So for it to return was just confusing.” Robbie began to suspect that his diet could be a contributing factor in how he was feeling.
The star had turned last year to an appetite-suppressant drug to lose weight, and shed nearly two stone. “I’d stopped eating and I wasn’t getting nutrients,” he explains. He was so vitamin C deficient he was even diagnosed with scurvy.
“A 17th century pirate disease,” Rob says matter-of-factly. What did Ayda say when he was getting too thin?
“With body dysmorphia, when people say they’re worried about how you’re looking, you’re like: ‘I’ve achieved it.’ When people say: ‘we’re worried you’re too thin’ that goes into my head as ‘jackpot. I’ve reached the promised land.’”
After changing his diet, Rob says his depression gradually lifted. But speaking to the star now, it’s clear the stark reality of his loved ones being unwell clearly weighs heavily on his mind. Like many people in the same situation, he is grappling with feelings of guilt and whether he is doing enough.
Being away for extended periods of time in Los Angeles – where he is now – only seems to add to the complexity of the situation. “It can be overpowering…there are elements of putting your head in the sand and putting your fingers in your ears and going, La La La,” he says.
“Are you doing enough? Are you doing too little? Who deserves what, where and when and how, and what do you deserve?” Ayda, who is incredibly close to her mum Gwen, is finding it equally tough-going.
“We’re a unit…and it’s a lot to navigate through….it’s a lot to be patient, love yourself and love those while they’re experiencing what they’re experiencing,” he says. Ensuring he is in a good place mentally is fundamental.
“The most important thing is for yourself to be okay….. and not causing chaos in mine or anybody else’s life, like I used to back in the 90s and early noughties,” he says.
“And if you are okay, then you can attack anything that comes your way.”
For the time being his focus is on preparing for his huge stadium tour which kicks off in Edinburgh on May 31, before shows in London, Manchester, Bath and Newcastle. It comes after a frenetic – and highly successful – 12 months for the star promoting last year’s autobiographical Better Man film, as well as his upcoming art exhibition Radical Honesty.
In a twist of fate, Robbie is going to be on the road at the same time as newly-reformed Oasis, with whom he shares a historic rivalry. As well as Noel Gallagher ’s “fat dancer from Take That” comment, things escalated with Robbie challenging Liam to a fight at the 2000 Brit Awards. But peace has seemingly broken out.
“Liam’s voice is peerless…he was, and is the voice of a generation,” says Robbie.
“It will be nostalgia on steroids…and hopefully it’ll be healing for the lads too. I was just looking at those songs, especially the first three years worth of songs, and it’s literally a lifetime and decades worth of bangers created over that period. The songwriting is sensational.”
But it sounds like he’ll definitely give the Gallagher brothers a run for the money. “I’ve set myself out with this giant task in my own mind of being the best entertainer on the planet,” he says. “And I know that sounds egoic and narcissistic, but I’m sure that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi didn’t want to be the sixth best football player in the world if they were given the opportunity.”
World…you’ve been warned.
Robbie Williams will tour the UK, Ireland and Europe this summer, opening on May 31 in Edinburgh.
Tickets here
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