In the grand retelling of his life, Robbie Williams wanted to be a lion. To be as strong, respected, and feared as the large cat tattooed on his right shoulder, or even as lithe as the tiger emblazoned on the front of his Rock DJ pants. “I was trying to find some self-worth at the time,” he says. “We all are, always. So I was like ‘I AM A LION!’”
Rumours around Williams’s sexuality are also playfully mentioned in the film, but it’s a complicated topic. In 2004, a tabloid newspaper ran an interview with Williams’s alleged “secret gay lover”, suggesting that Williams was deceiving the public by claiming to have sex with women to cover his “sordid homosexual encounters with strangers”. He sued the paper a year later for libel and won substantial damages and an apology.
“Here’s the thing: are you straight or are you gay?” he asks. I tell him I’m gay. “OK, I’ll ask you this: There is a front cover of a newspaper that is read by millions and a lady has said you have performed cunnilingus on her by a canal. Do you, as a gay person, sue the newspaper?” I tell him I wouldn’t sue, but I’d be annoyed because it’s not true. “I was annoyed,” he says. “I was more sad. Not about gay accusations because look, I’ve done everything but suck a cock. Honestly, you’ve never met somebody that wants to be gay as much as me.” He then further dispels any lingering rumours by reaching for a football analogy. “I’m a Port Vale fan and it’s like somebody going ‘well you’re a Liverpool fan’,” he says turning to Gracey. “And me saying ‘no I’m not, I’m a Port Vale fan’. When somebody says you’re a Liverpool fan a hundred times it’s like ‘I’m not a fucking Liverpool fan, why do people think I’m a Liverpool fan?!’.”
Later, looking genuinely concerned, he brings the topic up again. “You want to be an ally while at the same time protecting your own authenticity and your own life,” he says. “Besides, if I want to suck a cock, I’ll suck a cock. Who’s going to fucking stop me? My wife? The beard!”
*Adamfoxie: He gave himself away on that one. First not sucking a man's cock straight does not makes you. And He could be a very top man that only does missionary on the other body part. He said: "Ive done everything in this world except suck a cock"
Williams has spent two books (2004’s Feel and 2017’s Reveal), last year’s four-part Netflix documentary series and a good amount on therapy reflecting on the interplay between his life and fame. Since marrying Field in 2010 and starting a family, the way he approaches it has shifted. “‘Daddy goes to work’, that’s what I say now,” he says. “It wasn’t a job before. It was something that was supposed to be magical and when I got to the top of the mountain all that was there was existential crisis. But since [Theodora] arrived, I’ve grown up, and one of the big [changes] is, it’s a job.”
He’s stopped “trying to be Liam Gallagher” and is comfortable being “more Val Doonican”. A performing monkey, sure, but a great one. He also doesn’t care if calling it a job makes it seem a bit unromantic, or not very rock’n’roll. “People say ‘how dare you call it a job, all you do is X, Y and Z’, but just because your job is shit doesn’t mean my job has to be shit.”
He smiles a big, gloriously obnoxious Robbie Williams grin. “This is my job – and I fucking love it.”
Comments