Robbie Williams

• 1. Introduction

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  Robbie Williams walked onto a stage at Knebworth on the 1st of August 2003 and faced a crowd of 125,000 people. He then did it again on the 2nd and the 3rd. Three consecutive nights, with that many people each time, made it the biggest event in the history of UK music. During "Come Undone" he broke off to shout "Britain, I'm Your Son". He later pulled a girl from the audience up beside him.

  How did the son of a family that ran a pub in Stoke-on-Trent end up claiming a whole country as his own? Why did he walk out of the boy band that made him famous, and what pulled him back years later? And what does it take to sell an estimated 75 million to 80 million records, a total that places him among the best-selling artists of all time?

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• 2. Staffordshire Roots

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  Robert Peter Williams was born on the 13th of February 1974 in Stoke-on-Trent. His mother was Janet, born Farrell, and his father was Peter Williams, who also went by the name Pete Conway. The couple ran a pub called the Red Lion in Burslem. Later his father became licensee of the Port Vale Social Club. His maternal grandfather was an Irishman from Kilkenny.

  That social club turned a small boy into a lifelong fan of Port Vale, the football club of his home town. Years later the connection would cost him real money and earn him a title at the club.

  St Margaret Ward Catholic School in Tunstall gave him his first stage. He joined several school plays. The most notable was a production of Oliver! in which he played the Artful Dodger.

  The first records he ever heard belonged to his mother. They were by Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Cole Porter. Swing singers such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr shaped his taste from childhood. At the age of 10 he also fell for hip hop and began collecting electro records.

  An advertisement seeking members for a brand new boy band was about to send that mix of crooners and rap in an unexpected direction.

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• 3. Leaving Take That

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  In 1990, at sixteen, Williams became the youngest member to join Take That. His mother had spotted the advertisement. On the day of his audition he met fellow member Mark Owen, and he met the group's manager Nigel Martin-Smith at the same interview.

  Gary Barlow wrote and sang most of the group's material. Williams still took the lead vocal on three hits: "Could It Be Magic", "I Found Heaven" and "Everything Changes".

  His drinking and cocaine use soon put him at odds with Martin-Smith over the behaviour rules for the band. In November 1994 his drug use had escalated so far that he nearly overdosed the night before the group were due to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards. His friend Elton John later booked him into a clinic to cope with the drug use that grew out of his depression.

  Creative frustration fed the crisis. Williams wanted to explore hip hop and rap, while Take That mostly recorded ballads. In the documentary Take That: For the Record, he said his ideas were not taken seriously by Martin-Smith and Barlow. Barlow said in interviews that Williams had simply given up offering input.

  Barlow and Jason Orange grew worried about his belligerent behaviour and poor attendance at rehearsals. They feared he might walk out during the upcoming tour, so they took their concerns to Martin-Smith. At one of the last rehearsals before the tour, the three confronted Williams and said they wanted to tour without him. He agreed to quit and left in July 1995.

  The remaining four finished the Nobody Else Tour as a quartet. Take That then disbanded on the 13th of February 1996, which was Williams's 22nd birthday.

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• 4. Going Solo

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  Photographers caught Williams partying with the members of Oasis at Glastonbury Festival soon after he left. Talk shows and newspapers made him a subject of gossip once he said he planned to go solo. A clause in his Take That contract barred him from releasing any material until the group officially dissolved. Martin-Smith sued him, and Williams was forced to pay $200,000 in commission. After several legal battles over his right to a solo career, he was released from his contract with BMG. On the 27th of June 1996 he signed with Chrysalis Records.

  His solo debut in 1996 was a cover of George Michael's "Freedom", which reached number two in the UK Singles Chart. Recording for his first album began at the Maison Rouge studios in London in March 1997. Soon afterwards he was introduced to the songwriter and producer Guy Chambers. He was also drawing on Britpop bands such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp. "Old Before I Die" became the first single and also reached number two, though international charts largely ignored it.

  The album Life thru a Lens appeared in September 1997. It launched with his first live solo gig, at the Élysée Montmartre theatre in Paris. It debuted at number eleven on the UK Albums Chart.

  The fourth single, "Angels", became his best-seller in the United Kingdom. It was also a hit across Europe and Latin America, and it sent sales of the album soaring. Life thru a Lens stayed in the British top ten for forty weeks and spent 218 weeks there altogether. That made it the 58th best-selling album in UK history, with sales of over 2.4 million. In Europe it passed three million.

  In Jamaica in early 1998, Williams and Chambers began writing I've Been Expecting You. Its first single, "Millennium", came with a video in which Williams parodied James Bond. He wore a tuxedo and the clip nodded to the Bond films Thunderball and From Russia with Love. The song gave him his first solo number one in the UK. It also reached the top twenty in many European countries, Latin America and Australia.

  The album came out in late October 1998 and debuted at number one. "She's the One", a cover of a World Party track written by Karl Wallinger, became his second UK number one. The record sold almost 3 million copies in the UK and earned 10× Platinum from the BPI. In Europe it sold over 4 million. A European tour in late 1999 carried the songs across the continent, with an American deal already signed.

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• 5. Swing and Spectacle

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  Capitol Records, part of EMI, signed Williams for the United States in 1999. He did a promotional tour there and released "Millennium" as his first single in the United States and Canada. The compilation The Ego Has Landed followed in July 1999.

  The video for "Rock DJ", made by the directors Fred & Farid, caused an uproar. It showed Williams trying to get noticed by a group of women, first stripping and then tearing chunks of skin and muscle from his own body. Top of the Pops edited it for graphic content and many other channels followed. The song itself was inspired by the late Ian Dury, his UNICEF mentor. It reached number one in the UK and New Zealand, his third solo number one.

  The single won Best Song of 2000 at the MTV Europe Music Awards and Best Single of the Year at the Brit Awards. It also took an MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects. The album Sing When You're Winning arrived in August 2000 and topped the charts in many countries. In the UK it was certified 2× Platinum in its first week.

  Two weeks off his tour were enough for Williams to record Swing When You're Winning, his fourth studio album. He made it at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. The idea grew from his lifelong love of Frank Sinatra and from the success of "Have You Met Miss Jones?", which he recorded for the film Bridget Jones' Diary in 2001.

  His duet partners included his long-time friend Jonathan Wilkes, Little Voice star Jane Horrocks, Saturday Night Live star Jon Lovitz and Rupert Everett. The lead single paired him with the actress Nicole Kidman on "Somethin' Stupid", a hit originally for Frank and Nancy Sinatra. It became his fifth UK number one and one of the biggest hits of 2001. In 2003 "Beyond the Sea" played over the credits of Finding Nemo.

  In 2000 Williams had the phrase "Elvis Grant Me Serenity" tattooed on his body, and he says an "Elvis Prayer" before every concert. In 2001 he recorded "We Are the Champions" with Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen for the film A Knight's Tale. He says he was once asked to become Queen's new frontman and refused because of his "very low self-esteem". Freddie Mercury, he explained, was "angelic" and "godlike" to him.

  The next contract he signed, in 2002, would break a record of its own.

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• 6. The Record Deal

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  In 2002 Williams signed an £80 million contract with EMI, which remains the biggest music deal in British history. The label agreed to cede greater creative control to the artist. It also committed to breaking him into the American market. The deal was brokered by Ingenious Media, a UK corporate finance advisory business.

  Williams then spent a year in the studio on his fifth album, taking a far more active role than before. "One Fine Day", "Nan's Song" and "Come Undone" were the first songs he wrote without Guy Chambers. The first single, "Feel", began as a demo. When he tried to re-record the vocals, he felt dissatisfied, so he kept the demo version and released it. In late 2002 it became his biggest international hit, reaching number one in the Netherlands and Italy.

  Escapology reached number one in at least 10 countries. In the United States it failed to make such an impact. By the end of 2003 it had sold almost 2 million copies in the United Kingdom.

  Williams has rarely composed through traditional instrumental songwriting. He has limited formal instrumental ability and describes his voice as his main compositional tool. He builds melodies, phrasing and lyrical ideas over instrumentals supplied by collaborators. From Life thru a Lens through Escapology, Chambers served as his musical advisor. Together they produced "Angels", "Feel" and "Let Me Entertain You".

  In October 2004 the compilation Greatest Hits arrived with new tracks written with a new collaborator, Stephen Duffy. Its first single, "Radio", debuted at number one and became his sixth number-one hit. The compilation was the best-selling album of the year in the UK and Europe. At the 2005 Brit Awards the British public voted "Angels" the Best Single of the Past Twenty-Five Years, eight years after its release. That same year the public also named it the song they would most like played at their funeral.

  Williams recorded the next album, Intensive Care, at his house in the Hollywood Hills. He co-wrote it with Duffy over 24 months, and it was launched in Berlin on the 9th of October. In November 2005 he announced the 2006 Close Encounters World Tour and sold 1.6 million tickets in a single day, which earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. The tour began in South Africa in April 2006. By the end of its European leg, 2.5 million people had seen the show, and after Latin America and Australia the total reached 3 million.

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• 7. Rudebox to Reunion

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  Rudebox arrived on the 23rd of October 2006, a dance and electro album built with the Pet Shop Boys, William Orbit, Mark Ronson and others. Reviews were mixed. Allmusic gave it four stars and the NME gave it 8 out of 10, but some of the British press were far harsher. In Europe it sold over 2 million copies, making it the fastest platinum-selling album of 2006.

  A sabbatical in 2007 and 2008 gave Williams time for a long-held fascination with UFOs. He made a BBC Radio 4 documentary with Jon Ronson that followed them to a UFO convention in Nevada. Williams tied his obsession to his childhood fears of his mother's belief in "the world's mysteries, elves, demons, and witchcraft".

  His comeback came in the autumn of 2009. On the 11th of October he gave away a 12-track compilation, Songbook, as a free CD with The Mail on Sunday. That evening he sang his new single "Bodies" on The X Factor. On the 20th of October he opened the BBC Electric Proms at the Roundhouse in London, his first live concert in 3 years. More than 250 cinemas in 23 countries screened it, a Guinness record for simultaneous cinema screenings of a live concert.

  The new album was Reality Killed the Video Star, produced by Trevor Horn. Its title nodded to "Video Killed the Radio Star" by Horn's former band the Buggles. It came out on the 9th of November 2009, the same day as the debut album from X Factor runners-up JLS. JLS took the top spot by 1,500 sales.

  Williams had already shown interest in rejoining Take That by March 2009. At the Children in Need concert at the Royal Albert Hall that November, the two camps still performed separately. In the final song, Williams put his arm around Gary Barlow and sang "Hey Jude" with him. On the 15th of July 2010 he reconciled with his former bandmates and rejoined the group.

  Their album Progress, released in November 2010, became the second-fastest-selling album in UK chart history and the fastest-selling record of the century at that point. The Progress Live tour included eight nights at Wembley Stadium, and ticket hotlines and websites crashed under the demand. That tour sold 1.34 million tickets in less than 24 hours. Williams and Barlow also recorded the single "Shame" together.

  In 2011 Barlow confirmed that Williams had left a second time to focus on his solo career, calling the parting amicable. In August 2012 Take That played the closing ceremony of the Olympics as a four-piece, because Williams's wife was giving birth at about the same time.

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• 8. The Long Encore

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  On the 21st of October 2011 Williams signed with Island Records, part of Universal Music. On the 4th of June 2012 he opened the Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace, which Barlow had co-organised. His album Take the Crown debuted at number one, his tenth. Its lead single "Candy" sold 137,000 copies in its first week, the fastest-selling male artist single of the year. It was his seventh solo number-one single and his first since "Radio" in 2004.

  In November 2013 he released Swings Both Ways, a follow-up to his earlier swing album with duets with Michael Bublé, Olly Murs, Rufus Wainwright, Lily Allen and Kelly Clarkson. On the 1st of December 2014 he put out Under the Radar Volume 1 through his website. It collected leftovers and unreleased songs. Chambers was "not happy", Williams said, but he declared: "I am an impetuous bugger, and I want them out now, now, now!"

  In May 2016 Sony Music signed him. The Heavy Entertainment Show became his 12th UK number-one album, which put him level with Madonna. His first Christmas album, The Christmas Present, reached number one in 2019 and tied him with Elvis Presley on 13. It also sold over 10,000 cassettes in seven days, the most in two decades. His compilation XXV broke all previous Official Chart records in 2022 with his fourteenth solo number one.

  On the 14th of June 2018 he sang at the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. In the encore of "Rock DJ" he gave the finger to the camera, and Fox in the US apologised. ITV in the UK had cut away before it happened. On This Morning he explained: "The plan was, sing in key, don't fall over." He added that he had pulled off 99 percent of it.

  In November 2022 he performed in Qatar during the World Cup celebrations, and criticism followed over the country's human rights record. He said he did not condone abuses anywhere. Applying that standard everywhere, he argued, "it would be the shortest tour the world has ever known".

  Home has not forgotten him. In 2014 Stoke-on-Trent gave him the freedom of the city, with a tourist trail and streets named in his honour. In January 2024 he became president of Port Vale. He has also set up a charity there called Give It Sum, and he has been patron of the Donna Louise Trust since 2002.

  The film Better Man, a musical biopic of his life, opened at the Telluride Film Festival in August 2024. Parts of it were filmed in Melbourne in May 2022. It earned a record 16 nominations at the 2025 AACTA Awards and won nine, including Best Film. It failed at the box office, especially in the United States, where he is less known. Its song "Forbidden Road" was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, then disqualified because it incorporated material from Jim Croce's "I Got A Name".

  For the album Britpop, Williams wrote mostly with his drummer Karl Brazil and the songwriter Owen Parker. He described it as a return to his guitar-based British pop and rock roots. He released it three weeks early, on the 16th of January 2026, and it debuted at number one on the 23rd of January 2026. It was his sixteenth solo number-one album, one more than the Beatles' fifteen. Abroad it entered at number three in Germany and number 15 in Ireland, and a Britpop Tour across 2025 and 2026 was set to carry the songs to audiences.

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