Posted October 1, 201113 yr So who is the real Robbie Williams !!! http://i56.tinypic.com/33vdrmo.jpg He is married, sober, designing men’s clothes and planning a family. He’s also a depressive pop star who believes in aliens and wants plastic surgery on his abs Robbie Williams lives in a big (but not huge), luxe (but not decadent) gleaming white house built within the security-guarded confines of a gated community off Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles. It’s got wet rooms and walk-in wardrobes, the largest of which has been annexed by Williams: “The missus [32-year-old American actress Ayda Field, Williams’s wife since August 2010] very kindly gave me the bigger one.” It’s got room-to-room intercoms which constantly buzz (“What’s going on with the wi-fi?”; “Ayda’s not here, babe”), and it’s got a lot of staff. It’s got balustrades and it’s got dogs (of which Robbie Williams has nine). It’s got views of blue skies and high-drama canyons, and of Robbie Williams’s other house, which looks like a smaller version of this one, and which stands a little further up his personal Beverly Hill, just next to his private football pitch. “Look! Down there!” he says. We’re standing, Rob and I (I’ve been told to call him Rob, not Robbie), on the balcony outside his bedroom; he points down the garden, past the tree into which a couple of handymen are hoisting a chandelier, to a plot of land beyond. This is where he intends to build a third house. “I’m going to put my art in it,” he says. Not his art collection – his own self-produced art, examples of which are strewn all over house No 1, hanging on walls and leaning up against skirting boards, punctuated by the occasional Banksy print. Banksy is Williams’s inspiration. Well, sort of: “I watched Exit through the Gift Shop and thought, ‘I can do that,’ ” he says. Robbie Williams is as entitled and arrogant, and also riddled with self-doubt, as any human you’re ever likely to meet. “I was going through my I Don’t Want To Be A Pop Star Any More phase. I think that’s a phase everybody goes through. Chris Lowe from the Pet Shop Boys told me he did the same thing.” The I Don’t Want To Be A Pop Star Any More phase kicked in two years ago, and it begat the Artist phase – “I bought a load of canvases and a load of paint and I stayed in the garage until something looked half decent” – but then, Robbie Williams decided that he did still want to be a pop star after all, and in July 2010, he rejoined Take That, the boy band that had made him amazingly, confusingly and conflictingly famous in the first place. ***** The fluctuating fortunes of Robbie Williams are well documented. He’s 37 years old, and he’s been famous for nearly two decades. In the early Nineties, Williams became famous as the youngest and most wayward member of Take That, the band he joined following an open audition when he was a 16-year-old schoolboy from Stoke-on-Trent. Then, in 1995, he became famous as the one who walked out of the band while it was at its height of teenage girl mania-inducing, million-pound-spinning success. In the late Nineties, Williams became famous as an extremely successful solo artist, whose defining anthem Angels is one of the most played songs at funerals across the land, and whose private life generated at least as much press as his singing career. Through much of the 2000s, he was famous as an LA-dwelling Howard Hughes-ish recluse, as a has-been whose faltering musical fortunes and somewhat questionable fascination with alien abduction played out against the backdrop of Take That’s rebirth, a pop resurrection so assured and well received that it eclipsed the heights reached by the band the first time around. Now, of course, he’s famous for being the one who went back to Take That, who reunited with its four existing members (Mark Owen, Howard Donald, Jason Orange and Williams’s one-time nemesis turned friend, collaborator and supporter, Gary Barlow) for 2010’s multimillion selling album Progress, and 2011’s instant sell-out stadium tour. ***** But, back to the art. Williams is proud of it. He holds a piece or two up for my inspection. It’s not half as bad as you’d imagine. It is wordy and bold, large stencilled declarations or visual puns (by Williams’s own admission, “I can’t paint. Or draw”). I am particularly impressed by one, a pastiche of the Little Chef sign. Williams has changed the wording so that it reads “Little Thief”, and if you look closely enough at the illustrated chef logo, you’ll see it bears a resemblance to Gary Barlow. “I did the Little Thief one for Gaz,” Williams says. “He’s here, been here all week, working on songs for a new album.” The album may not happen, but yes, Gary Barlow is here – sunbathing by the pool, wearing shorts which are later described to me, by an eyewitness, like this: “If they weren’t actually Speedos, they were definitely very short, and very tight.” “I did two more paintings last week,” Williams says. “Wrote three songs. Did a radio show.” None of this has anything to do with Farrell, the menswear line Williams has launched, and the reason he’s granted me an interview. I am under strict instructions to question him at length about it, but Williams doesn’t really want to talk about that. He is still wayward, you see. He knows what he is supposed to be doing and he is choosing not to do it. Oh, he goes through the motions for five minutes or so. Headlines: Farrell was named after Williams’s maternal grandfather Jack “the Giant Killer” Farrell, the man who, according to my Farrell briefing, semi-raised Williams, whose father left the family home when he was 3. Or did he? “No. Well, kind of. He was just a big friendly giant killer. Who wanted me to be a man.” The collection includes duffel coats and military coats and frock coats and herringbone pants – very much men’s wear, as opposed to skinny-jeany, baggy-vested trendy boy wear. Rob was “very involved” in the design process, although he won’t say how, exactly, beyond suggesting that shirt collars were shorter and stash pockets sit here, and generally, “being finicky”. What do you want from Farrell? Do you want it to be very successful? “Yeah. I’d love it to be really really successful. Yeah! I’m seeing flagship stores. I’m seeing it in Savile Row. I’m seeing Singapore. I’m seeing out here.” Do you want it to make lots of money? “Yes. I really like Liam’s [Gallagher] clothes. I really like Pretty Green. But I remember him doing an interview and saying, ‘I’m not doing this for money.’ I was thinking, ‘Why not? You get paid. That’s great, innit?’ ” I presume designing clothes wasn’t something you’ve burnt to do, from childhood on? “No. But singing wasn’t.” And finally: he doesn’t like the people within the fashion industry. “They’re w***ers.” Then, bam! Robbie Williams tires of promoting the thing he’s supposed to, and changes tack dramatically. “What research did you do for this interview?” he asks. Um… I read a lot of recent interviews, but honestly, I’ve been researching this piece for 20 years. I’m a Take That fan. “Are you? Ha. You know who else is a Take That fan? Rose West!” Really? “Yes! Somebody sent me a link! Rose West is in jail, humming along to Take That songs!” Which ones? “I don’t know which ones!” How does that make you feel? “Proud!” And he’s off, on vast rambling conversational departures that have nothing to do with anything much, but which take in his favourite websites, his inability to sleep in the big bedroom in which I interview him (“I grew up in a boxroom. I can’t sleep if there’s too much space.” Shame given how rich you are, I say. Must be problematic. “Not really, babe. No”); his speculations on the future of print journalism and the nature of modern celebrity, and his motivations for making the move to Los Angeles 11 years ago (“I came here for the women”). What I really want to know, though, is this: is Robbie Williams bonkers? That’s the big question, isn’t it? From a distance, anyone observing his behaviour, and the twists and turns of his life to date, might wonder. He’s often seemed more than a little broken; brokenness has been interwoven into his public profile. Even at his most successful as a solo artist, Williams’s lyrical USP has been to hint at how lost he was, how angry about Take That and the band’s overbearing Svengali of a former manager, Nigel Martin-Smith (Williams’s 1998 single No Regrets is devoted to that), how he’s incapable of loving any woman other than his mother (for whom he wrote Angels). He has never struck me as especially happy. Beyond that: is he sober, or on the brink of a relapse? Williams has battled drug and alcohol addictions publicly and questions about the progression of his recovery were raised following his last attempt at a solo comeback, when he performed very shakily indeed at a 2009 X Factor live show. He looked wild-eyed and crazy throughout, and he’s said that it was this experience that served as a catalyst for his I Don’t Want To Be A Pop Star Any More phase. He’s admitted to depressive periods, to injecting testosterone to deal with that; his weight has fluctuated, and he’s had a series of very public feuds with other celebrities – this summer he had a spat with Noel Gallagher that revolved around Williams’s alleged man boobs. In 2008, Williams got caught up in alien abduction theory when the journalist Jon Ronson made a documentary about a pilgrimage he and a bushily bearded Williams took to the Nevada desert in search of the truth. Plus he’s already told me he hasn’t left this house once in the four weeks or so since he came off the Take That tour – although he has shipped many other people in. He is, he says, an excellent host. Are you happy, Rob? “Yeah. I was just saying. Things have never looked so up. There’s contentment, and… just recording a new [solo] album. And knowing that it’s really strong. And I’ve got a few other things on the horizon. Things feel very complete. Things feel very do-able.” He pauses. “I get it a bit more.” Are you depressive, still? Another pause. “Yes.” Do you think depression will always be part of your life? He pauses again. He is less garrulous now. “Yeah.” Williams has said in past interviews that he thinks he triggered his own depression by taking too much Ecstasy when he was younger, and that this depleted the levels of serotonin in his brain. Does he still believe that? “I don’t know what it was. It was there before. I think pills and drugs were my medicine. And drink. I chose that, to try to ease it. To medicate the problem that was already there. Which exasperated [sic] it and turned it into something worse.” Following stints in rehab, he says he is now sober, and there is nothing about him that suggests otherwise. He is very present, engaged, considered. I can’t see evidence of man boobs lurking beneath the Farrell check shirt he’s wearing. He smokes more than anyone I’ve ever met, mind you, lighting one Silk Cut after another after another. “Do you smoke?” he asks. No, I say. “Sorry, darling. Sorry,” he says, and he puffs on. How do you deal with depression now you’re off the booze and drugs? Williams doesn’t answer. Is it just… less of an issue? “Much less of an issue. And… I’m on stuff that stops it.” Antidepressants? “Yeah.” They do the trick? “Have you taken them?” No. “Right. They do do the trick, but, I think that the pharmaceutical companies are as bad as drug dealers. Because I don’t know what it is that I’m putting in my system. I don’t think it’s 100 per cent great for you. I think there’s poison in there. I think it depletes your natural ability to do it for yourself. But you’re in a Catch-22 situation, because when you try to come off it, you get sick…” Then, there’s marriage. It would suit Williams – who can talk about “invisible strings in the universe” and “beautiful stories”, and invoke emotional journeys and pleasing narrative arcs as well as any modern celebrity equipped with a basic grasp of pop psychology – to say that he’d been saved by love. But the fact is, he probably has been a bit saved by love. Until Ayda Field, there was no one, really. Endless one-night stands, some of whom would trot off to the tabloids afterwards; rumoured liaisons with Rachel Hunter, Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson… Then came Field, a TV actress best known for a role on a US soap opera, with whom Williams has been in a relationship since 2006. He proposed to her live on an Australian radio show in 2009, a gesture that was presumably designed to be as headline-garnering as it was romantic; they married, in a small ceremony held at this house, in August 2010. Williams references Field constantly and incidentally, in the style of anyone who is besotted and a little dependent. Field flits in and out of the interview apologising for the intrusion, saying she must find such-and-such. Williams says, “It’s my wife! Come here, wife!” He tells me he’s teaching her to swear with a Stoke accent. When Field catches Williams telling me about his past life, the drugs he did and the women he slept with, she says, “Boosie!” in mock admonishment. “I did, Boo. I did. I did drugs. I slept around,” he says. Are you a good husband? “Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah!” What makes you so good? “I don’t cheat on her. That’s the main one. That was the main worry that I had.” Monogamy hasn’t been your thing, has it? “Well, I haven’t had to. I haven’t had to monogamise.” So you didn’t know if you were capable of it? “I didn’t want to be capable. All the way through my twenties, I wanted someone who would fix me. Then I wanted a maid. But I didn’t even find them! We’re fed a load of bulls*** about love, from the day we arrive on this planet. Through films and music and literature. And you hold it in such high esteem, put it on this pedestal… And the guilt! The guilt! I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do what a woman needed me to do! So I went, ‘Right! I’m going to be single.’ ” You didn’t think you were capable of a relationship? “I didn’t want one. I think up till now, with relationships, I’ve played it well. I waited till I was well into my thirties, I did what I needed to do, I got here without any kids. Now I’m a bit older, a bit more mature, kids will come.” You want kids? “Yeah. I do.” How many? “She wants a football team. I want two. A boy and a girl.” Have you got names for them? “Yeah.” What? “Should I? Is that something that I should do?” Yes! “Woody! Woody and Sonny! Cool, eh?” Is this… imminent? “Next year. Next year! She wants to get on it now, but… just got back off tour. There’s a stretch from now till Christmas… and then, we’ll do some practising.” Then: “Do you want to see my dressing room?” Of course I do. It is huge. Bigger than the ground floor of my entire flat. It’s reached through a big, marble-clad bathroom; it has windows along one side and endless, Savile Row-ish wooden portals and wardrobes. Clothes are folded and hanging neatly, everywhere. So many clothes. Williams strokes T-shirts and jumpers and dates them, tells me when they were acquired, when he wore them: “This one [emblazoned with the legend I Love Blackpool] is 1998, and this…” He unfolds a sweater with a ghastly Christmas design on it. “Two thousand and… ten.” He says he loves clothes. “Love getting dressed, love feeling when you leave the house that you’ve got your armour on, your magical suit that will see you through.” Have you always loved clothes? “Always.” Did you have a stylist with Take That? He snorts incredulously. “Um… Have a look! I think we were all given, like, £30 to go and buy stuff from [clothes emporium] Afflecks in Manchester. And I think, in the early days, Jason Orange was very much the stylist. So if you want to ask questions about lycra and leather jackets with studs and tassels on them, Jason’s your man.” I wonder how he is dealing with the ageing process. He was a pin-up, a much-fancied pretty boy whose particular variety of fame meant that he was as objectified and lusted over as much as any girl. He is still good looking – surprisingly tall, with a big, open face, which is largely wrinkle-free, so I’m wondering about Botox – but of course, he’s also older, less dewy. You’re doing well for wrinkles, I say, suspiciously. “Mum’s got good skin. Dad’s got good skin.” You hair’s staying. Congrats. “It’s got thinner though.” Would you have surgery? “Yes! Yeah. I don’t know why people lie about it.” Have you had anything, yet? “No. But I would.” What? “F***ing everything. I’ve been watching Celebrity Big Brother. Did you see it? And Darryn Lyons with his sculpted abs…” Darryn Lyons, the publicity-friendly owner of the Big Pictures picture agency, became briefly famous this summer after displaying, in the Celebrity Big Brother house, the results of abdominal surgery on his naked torso. Williams was impressed. You’re thinking about it? “I am thinking about it. I haven’t had abs since I was 17.” You had great abs. “I did.” Do you look at pictures of yourself from then, and think, I was gorgeous? “Do you want to see one?” He takes me into the studio beyond the dressing room, where middle-aged men who look a bit like Pete Waterman are twiddling with guitars. Williams shows me a set of three close-up shots of his face, taken when he was in his late teens, swaddled in a hoody. He is beautiful. Terrifyingly young, wondrously fresh-faced, with bruises of shadows beneath his eyes. “Seventeen. Backstage at Wembley,” he says. You were – perfect, I say. “Yes,” he says. When was the last time you felt handsome? He pauses for a long time. “Years ago.” Really? “Yeah. It’s not something that I generally feel.” But… you’re a pin-up. He lights another Silk Cut. “Yeah, but… when you put weight on, go up and down… stay awake for three nights on the trot, get your picture taken looking f***ing horrendous… all of that… The image of me isn’t the one that you see, and it isn’t the one Ayda sees, but… I really enjoy Ayda’s version of me.” What is Ayda’s version of you? “She really digs me. She thinks I’m amazing.” So, ultimately, I am forced to conclude that Robbie Williams isn’t especially bonkers at the moment – unusual, certainly, but not certifiable – and that he might even be quite happy. Although he does still believe in aliens. “Absolutely. Although I am also open to the fact that it is all bulls***. Same goes for God.” He rambles on. He tells me how great the Take That reunion was. He tells me how great the prospective solo album is shaping up to be, and how brilliant it’s been, working with Barlow (“I’m kind of in love with Gary Barlow”). He tells me he loves LA. “Because it’s basically desert energy. Mixed with a load of d***heads. If you throw a stone from here, you’ll hit one. But I don’t do that any more. They’re not keen on that, in the housing association.” And he tells me that Charlie Sheen has a house a little down the road, and that when Sheen is really kicking off, the sky fills with helicopters and it all gets rather thrilling. Eventually – just as he’s telling me how rich he is (“Really really rich. It’s unfathomable”) – the PR from Farrell calls time on us, and the interview ends. He seems sorrier even than I am. Rob(bie) Williams does like a chat. “Can I show Polly my land?” he asks Josie, his manager. “No Rob, you can’t,” she tells him. “Sorry, Poll,” he says. “Can’t show you my land.” He hugs me goodbye, and I leave him calling for Gary Barlow. Farrell, a collection devised by Robbie Williams, is available now exclusively at House of Fraser and very.co.uk; farrell.com Times UK Edited October 2, 201113 yr by Sacramento
October 2, 201113 yr Author Interesting article. And nice photo. :wub: I have amended the artcle Jups...missed half of it frst time .. :wacko: :lol:
October 2, 201113 yr ''So, ultimately, I am forced to conclude that Robbie Williams isn’t especially bonkers at the moment – unusual, certainly, but not certifiable'' :lol:
October 3, 201113 yr From http://www.gigwise.com/news/67536/Robbie-W...mpletely-Untrue Robbie Williams Quits Take That Rumours 'Completely Untrue' :nocheer: Robbie Williams has not quit Take That for a second time, the band's spokesperson has said. It follows speculation on Twitter today (October 3) that Williams, who rejoined last year, had decided to leave again following their recent tour. But a spokesperson for the band's publicity company, said: “Rumours about Take That splitting today - completely untrue. “They are on a break - Gary is on X Factor and Robbie is working on his new album.” The rumours are believed to have stemmed from an interview Gary Barlow gave to the Radio Times. Meanwhile, Williams revealed on his blog recently that work was progressing quickly on his next solo album, which he is believed to have written with Barlow.
October 3, 201113 yr Author Take That back to four for now Gary Barlow says that Take That are a four-piece again but that Robbie Williams is welcome back any time. The 40-year-old X Factor judge told the Radio Times that Williams was no longer in the band. "It was beautiful. We got on well. We finished the tour. We're all happy", he said. But a Take That spokesman insisted the current line-up of the group was simply on "a break". "I can confirm that the band are not splitting and there is no pending announcement of a split," he said. Barlow told Radio Times: "The fans have come along and been happy. Great, great, great, great, great. "Now Rob's doing a solo record, and from this point it's back to where it was." He said Take That's revival as a five-man band "ended perfectly", adding: "You know what, we can revisit it whenever we want. "He's our brother, Rob is, and if he's ever in trouble or he wants to have a year off being Robbie Williams, he's welcome any time he wants." The chart-toppers announced in 2010 that they would be performing their first tour as a complete group, Progress Live 2011, for 16 years. Barlow said of the pair's previous fall-outs: "It would be unfair for me to say he's the one with the ego because I've got a pretty big ego as well. "And especially in those younger days when I was 24 and he was 20, but then you come back - I was 38 and he was 34 - and it's like 'Let's talk this through'." Source...Sky News
October 10, 201113 yr From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/articl...o=feeds-newsxml HOTHOUSE CELEBRITY GOSSIP: Could it be tragic? Take That rivals vie for flat By Eve Mcgowan Take That’s latest split may have been amicable but could the bonhomie come to an end over a luxury penthouse? Jason Orange, 41, and Robbie Williams, 37, have expressed an interest in the same £5.5 million property in Central St Giles, off Holborn in Central London. Jason was spotted viewing the property – which takes up the entire 11th floor and comes with a huge roof terrace – last week. He was shortly followed by Robbie’s manager, Tim Clark. The development is also home to Google’s London offices and Jamie Oliver is to open a branch of Union Jack there next month. :mellow:
October 10, 201113 yr From http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original...212386025.shtml Robbie Williams is reportedly in talks to re-join Take That for a performance the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London next year . The singer rejoined his former bandmates in 2010, 14 years after quitting the group, and he exited once again following the completion of the band's Progress Live shows this summer . Director Danny Boyle is organising the show and is said to be in talks with the band to stage another reunion at the Olympic show when the games hit the British capital next year. A source tells Britain's Daily Star Sunday, :rolleyes: "Danny is keen on reuniting them and they would be mad to turn it down. Despite neither of them (Williams or Take That) cracking America they both have real international fame and he thinks they would be perfect for the musical opening ceremony." © WENN
October 13, 201113 yr Author STRICTLY’S Robbie Savage, 36, says he’s been getting dance tips from Robbie Williams. The Take That star, 37, has vowed to travel to London to watch him perform live if he makes it through Saturday’s show. Daily Star
October 13, 201113 yr http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s104/strict...mbley-slot.html Robbie Williams may make an appearance at the Strictly Come Dancing Wembley show. Williams has been vocal in his support for footballer Robbie Savage on the BBC One reality show and may visit the studio if the Welsh soccer star makes it to the special Wembley arena episode. Savage told It Takes Two: "Straight after Saturday's show, Robbie emailed me. He said that he might come over to watch the show if I make it to Wembley." The Strictly Wembley show airs on Saturday, November 19. The Take That star joked about Savage: "I love him and I think he's doing a cracking job, though I'm not sure which one's the girl when they're dancing." Savage picked up a standing ovation and 29 points for his foxtrot with pro partner Ola Jordan at the weekend. Jordan and Savage will dance a tango on this weekend's Broadway-themed special. "The bar is raised and we have to be really good. There's a lot of pressure. We're getting there slowly," said Jordan. Savage laughed: "It's the spins I'm having trouble with. I can't even go in the teacups or waltzers."
October 14, 201113 yr http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2011/1...15875-23480405/ Robbie Williams raking it in from non-musical earnings SING when you’re winning, eh Robbie Williams? Or, indeed, win when you’re not even singing. End-of-year accounts filed by the star show his company You’re Not Famous – which handles all his non-musical earnings – racked up a tidy £1million profit. Meanwhile, his internet business, RobbieWilliams.com, is also showing profits of £500,000. Recession? What recession?
October 14, 201113 yr Awww that's good news. :cheer: I must admit I was rather worried about his financial state last year. Why, he must have been down to his last £125 million! :o
October 18, 201113 yr Author IMG]http://i53.tinypic.com/2ro41o5.jpg[/img] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dermot-OLeary-Pres...5755&sr=1-3
October 18, 201113 yr Author http://i53.tinypic.com/2ro41o5.jpg http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dermot-OLeary-Pres...5755&sr=1-3 I wonder which Robbie song will feature :unsure: Edited October 18, 201113 yr by Sacramento
October 19, 201113 yr Author Robbie Williams H-elpful to Steps STEPS star Ian "H" Watkins says Robbie Williams encouraged him to leave the group a decade ago. STEPS have revealed one of the many reasons for their bitter split ten years ago Speaking on the Sky Living series Steps Reunion, Ian, 35, said: "We were at Top of the Pops and I was sat on my own in a corridor. I remember Robbie came over to me and he put his arm around me and said, 'It's time to leave' and I went, 'Yeah'. "I don't want to feel like that again. I want this group to be a part of my life and enhance it, not damage it." Steps hit top spot in the album chart on Sunday with their greatest hits. Steps Reunion airs tonight at 9pm Source.. The SUN
October 19, 201113 yr What? :o Robbie was responsible for the breakup of Steps? :o :o :o Well done Rob!!!! :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :lol:
October 20, 201113 yr :lol: anyone here a Steps fan? :P also looking on the brightside, :o Westlife are splitting up
October 25, 201113 yr Oh dear. Spot the mix up! http://www.musicrooms.net/showbiz/42467-ro...ries-again.html :lol:
