Robbie Williams, like Harry Styles, began his musical life in a boy band.
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And like Styles, Williams conquered Britain’s charts and stadiums. But Williams traveled a darker path, feeding the paparazzi with as much off-stage entertainment as he had produced onstage or in the studio.
At 16, he became famous with the boy band Take That. But Williams’ struggles with addiction and internal tension with lead singer Gary Barlow led to his departure and the group’s demise.
Surviving a ’90s version of Beatlemania while growing up in the public eye, Williams emerged in 1997 with a solo album, Life Thru a Lens, that transformed him into a superstar.
Ego a Gogo
His is the career Barlow should have had, something Williams relished with petty spite in the change of fortune between the two former friends. The higher Williams’ star rose, the lower he descended into self-destruction—determined to separate himself from his boy band past.
Fame and success broke Williams through his insatiable need for attention. Though he loathed the paparazzi, he also craved the headlines.
Karma Killer
However, Williams wasn’t operating alone. Guy Chambers guided Williams as a solo artist and collaborated as a producer and songwriter on his biggest hits, including “Angels,” “Let Me Entertain You,” Millennium,” and “Rock DJ.”
But he pushed Chambers away, too. There was something inside him that had to prove he could do it alone. Chambers became a casualty in a long line of broken relationships in Williams’ life. It began with Take That.
Take That and Party
Internal tension between Williams and Barlow became too much to overcome. Between Williams’ erratic behavior and jealousy over Barlow’s prominence in the band, Take That was doomed.
But the group began with Barlow.
Manchester, England-based manager Nigel Martin-Smith wanted a British version of New Kids on the Block and, in 1990, assembled a group with Barlow, Mark Owen, Howard Donald, and Jason Orange. Martin-Smith wanted another singer and published an advertisement that Williams’ mother noticed in the newspaper. With his mother’s encouragement, the Stoke-on-Trent-born Williams auditioned and landed the gig.
Take That became a cultural phenomenon, but Williams rebelled against the group’s clean-cut image.
The addiction and tumult with Barlow was untenable, and they asked him to leave in 1995. He quit Take That, and they disbanded the following year.
The band ended, but the party was just beginning.
He willingly played the bad boy and his addiction was like catnip for the paparazzi, who followed the singer while he partied with Oasis, George Michael, and the Spice Girls.
Millennium and No Regrets
With a rising solo career, he set sights on America, but fans across the Atlantic shrugged.
For all his chart-topping success in Britain, Williams failed to break through in the United States. He experienced a fate similar to other UK pop acts that didn’t translate in the U.S.
By the mid-2000s, his star had faded. The unrelenting press, drugs, and mental health struggles kept downward pressure on him. Though his albums continued to reach No. 1 in the U.K., diminishing sales and lackluster reviews persisted.
Let Me Entertain You
Williams’ career reached a new low when he released a rap song called “Rudebox.” Panned by the press and ignored by fans, he spiraled in despair.
The failed comeback led Williams to reconnect with Take That for a successful reunion album and a tour in 2010.
It was a surprising return after watching Williams spend his entire solo career distancing himself from his boy band history.
Phoenix from the Flames
So, how does Williams feel about diminished success? In an interview with The Guardian, he reflected on life in the pop margins. He said, “But do I unashamedly want to still be one of the biggest artists in the world? Yeah, I do.”
Though his albums reliably top the UK charts, Williams is now a legacy act who, as Nick Duerden from The Guardian pointed out, is likelier to be playlisted on Smooth Radio than BBC Radio 1.
In his 2022 book Exit Stage Left: The Curious Afterlife of Pop Stars, Duerden examines the extraordinary heights of stardom and the ordinary life that follows the comedown.
She’s the One
Netflix released a documentary series on Williams’ life and career in 2023. It follows his career rise and follows the singer at home in Los Angeles, reflecting on his 25-year record-breaking career.
He married American actress Ayda Field in 2010. They have four children. In 2019, he released a Christmas album, his first release since The Heavy Entertainment Show in 2016.
And through it all, she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I’m right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won’t break me
When I come to call
She won’t forsake me
I’m loving angels instead
A young Robbie Williams spent many years pushing those closest to him away. He lit both ends of the candle, then hung upside down in stadiums, doing what he did best—putting on a show.
But he finally found balance with his family. As the Netflix documentary ends, he says he’s close to “being really, really happy.”
The upside to his music and his frequently exposed bum not translating in America is Williams lives in relative anonymity for a man who’s sold out stadiums in other parts of the world.
He finally reached that point in “Millennium” where “we find ourselves a partner, someone to relate to, then we’ll slow down.”
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Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images for Chopard
