From boyband heartthrob to Britpop bad boy, Robbie Williams’ career has been fuelled by swagger, self-sabotage, and startling honesty. We take a look at the star’s wildest ever moments
Few pop stars have lived as loudly — or as unpredictably — as Robbie Williams. From boyband heartthrob to Britpop bad boy, the star’s career has been fuelled by swagger, self-sabotage, and startling honesty.
The Stoke-on-Trent star, who turns 52 this week, quit Britain’s biggest band at its peak, publicly challenged rivals to boxing matches, stripped down to a skeleton in a music video, and played to hundreds of thousands while privately battling addiction and anxiety. Although he’s much calmer these days, Robbie has turned chaos into charisma time and again throughout his career. Check out his wildest ever moments below.
1. Take That meltdown
When he was in Take That, Robbie was known as the bad boy trapped in a boy-band cage. He’d often go out partying with Oasis while the rest of the group stayed in. There’s a famous story where he missed rehearsals because he’d been out all night with Liam Gallagher, then showed up extremely hungover. That tension eventually blew the band apart and led to his very public exit in 1995.
2. Brit Awards ‘95: the Oasis beef
At the 1995 BRIT Awards, Robbie got on stage, drunkenly called out Oasis, and publicly challenged Liam Gallagher to a £100,000 boxing match.
He later showed up at the afterparty looking for Liam. The over-the-top bravado became peak “Britpop chaos.”
3. The drugs era
Robbie has been brutally honest about how out of control things got. He once admitted he couldn’t leave his house without cocaine and admitted he’d go days without sleeping.
At one point he was so depressed and addicted that he didn’t care if he lived or died. Robbie has entered rehab multiple times and has spoken candidly about addiction, paranoia, and loneliness at the height of fame. His honesty about it later became a defining part of his public image.
4. The ‘Rock DJ’ video
The 2000 music video famously shows him stripping off his skin and muscles down to a dancing skeleton to impress women roller-skating around him. It was banned or edited in several countries for graphic content — but became iconic.
5. His monkey connection
In interviews Robbie’s said he often feels like a trained monkey — dancing, performing, desperate for approval.
During the promotion of Let Me Entertain You, he often performed in a white faux-fur outfit that looked like a space-age monkey suit — a bold, chaotic visual that matched his anarchic stage presence at the time.
Years later, he leaned fully into the monkey metaphor by portraying himself as a CGI chimp in his own biopic.
6. UFO Obsession
Robbie has openly talked about multiple UFO sightings and even paused his music career for a period to study extraterrestrials. He later joked that aliens interfered with his songwriting sessions.
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