Robbie Williams has revealed that there was a contract out to kill him, during the height of his fame.
The Rock DJ singer, 46, detailed the scary side of living in the limelight and admitted it ‘doesn’t take much’ to put him off-kilter while discussing taking anti-anxiety medication and his struggle with depression.
Speaking to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, Robbie also confessed that he’s ‘been mostly in pain’ for the second half of his life, and insisted the secret to finally being in a good place, is ‘being content’.
Scary! Robbie Williams, 46, has revealed that there was a contract out to KILL him, during the height of his fame as he detailed the scary side of living in the limelight
Robbie revealed: ‘Simon Cowell said one line once, and it changed my frame of how i think about things. He just said: ‘Embrace the madness.”
Explaining how life changed when he became famous with boyband Take That, the singer said: ‘I come from Stoke. I love my hometown, not being able to go there or go out straight away when I was 17.
‘People wanted to beat me up everywhere I went. There was a contract out on me to kill me at one point, which I have never talked about.
‘Instantly my life was viewed through one filter and then within a matter of five, six, seven months I had been catapulted to Mars on a spaceship.
Candid: The Rock DJ singer also admitted it ‘doesn’t take much’ to put him off-kilter while discussing taking anti-anxiety medication and his struggle with depression
Real talk: Speaking to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, Robbie also confessed that he’s ‘been mostly in pain’ for the second half of his life (pictured in 2010)
‘I was expected to know how to man that spaceship and make it land properly and take care of myself and be safe. And I just wasn’t; I wanted to return to normality.
‘I wanted my cake and eat it, while being able to fulfil what I presumed was going to be my destiny, I didn’t know that fighting against it was futile.’
Robbie found the situation so difficult that at the height of his success he had suicidal thoughts, explaining: ‘I was gifted with the opportunity to reach the top of the mountain.
‘At one point in my career I sold the most tickets that any body had sold in the history of music, I got the biggest record contract that anybody had had in the history of music. And I wanted to kill myself.
Shocking! Explaining how fame changed his life, he said: ‘People wanted to beat me up everywhere I went. There was a contract out on me to kill me at one point, which I have never talked about’ (Pictured in 1990)
Wise words: Robbie revealed: ‘Simon Cowell said one line once, and it changed my frame of how i think about things. He just said: “Embrace the madness”,’
‘So I had reached the top of the mountain, and I think the fallacy as human beings is that if we just had this, this and this and this, everything would be alright.
‘Well I got all of those. I got this, this, this and this. And I felt worse than I did when I was a 16 year old who didn’t have any of that.’
Robbie detailed how his mental health has improved with clean-living and the help of medication.
The singer said: ‘I eat really well, I sleep really well. I don’t touch drugs and I don’t drink. So, that is vital for me to cope as a human being. It is enough to manage it.
‘Plus I take anxiety medication. And the medication works. I have no plans of coming off it.
Depression is real: Robbie found the situation so difficult that at the height of his success he had suicidal thoughts (Pictured in 2001)
The good place: The singer insisted the secret to finally being in a good place, is ‘being content’ (Pictured with daughter Theodora, 8, and son Charlton, 6)
‘People sometimes feel shameful that they have to take medicine or they don’t like the fact that there is some sort of poison in their system, the judgement on that is incredibly dangerous. It is awful.
‘I know there was judgement from certain quarters when I was considering… we are not doctors. I am not suggesting anyone should take them or shouldn’t.’
Detailing how it feels to live each day as an addict, Robbie said: ‘I wake up and the addict wakes up before me. And it is like being in X-Men.
‘You have this beam coming out your chest, it wants to seek, destroy and overcome and consume. When I am not drinking, taking pills or taking powder and doing all that stuff. If I shine this beam correctly I can achieve anything.’
Mental health matters: Robbie detailed how his mental health has improved with clean-living and the help of medication
Candid: Detailing how it feels to live each day as an addict, Robbie said: ‘I wake up and the addict wakes up before me. And it is like being in X-Men’
Explaining what he’s managed to do since becoming sober, the pop star said: ‘I have been doing art – I did 33 pieces – 8 hours a day. I wrote a dance album. I came up with two TV show ideas – three – that I want to do.
‘If you can harness the power of your own destructive nature it is so powerful!’
Continuing, Robbie said: ‘I know where I have been, I know how overpowered I felt. I know the hellish days and nights, that consumed my soul I know I don’t want to return back there.’
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The former Take That star admitted that, if he’s required to do something which pushes him out of his normal routine, it can make him feel depressed.
He said: ‘I will do everything possible – in my means – to be able to play on this levelled playing surface.
Honest: The former Take That star admitted that, if he’s required to do something which pushes him out of his normal routine, it can make him feel depressed
‘It doesn’t take much to put me off kilter. Doing promo to do a breakfast show. Getting up at 5am to do the breakfast show at 7am – the rest of the day may as well be 1995 – I am in depression.
‘I know what I need not to revert back to the person I was. I was thinking of going back to my school and giving a chat about what is possible in life. We have this psychology that big things happen to other people.’
Robbie also explained how he’d assumed the depression and self-loathing he felt in his twenties would disappear in his thirties.
He said: ‘When you are twenty four, five, six, you think when you’re thirty four, five, six, seven, all of this depression and self-loathing and feeling uncomfortable will disappear and you will have had it sorted out.
‘Then I’m realising it didn’t fix me, and that’s terrifying… I’ve been mostly in pain for the second half of my life.
‘Is this as good as it gets? Is this how it is going to be for the rest of my life? Am I going to be in turmoil? Am I going to feel this pain for the rest of my life?’
Not as planned: Robbie also explained how he’d assumed the depression and self-loathing he felt in his twenties would disappear in his thirties
The star detailed how he’s now been in a good place for two years, saying: ‘I heard someone say once you spent the second 20 years of your life sorting out the first 20 years of your life.
‘I am now 46, I would say, for the last two years… life has been really good. You know what the miracle is, the miracle is that you just have a level playing surface. And that’s it.
‘There’s no – for me – those incredible MDMA highs, or that incredible cocaine high, or the steroid high, or the 80,000 people high.
‘The thing that you feel you have to be wittiest, most charming, most handsome, the quickest, the fastest, the strongest…
‘The secret is being content. That’s the secret. I’ve noticed last couple of years I am content. It’s just a wonderful feeling to have. I would say most people aren’t normal- but a lot of people start out feeling like this. Just being okay is the miracle.’
Life is good: ‘I am now 46, I would say, for the last two years… life has been really good. You know what the miracle is, the miracle is that you just have a level playing surface. And that’s it’
Talking specifically about his 2006 struggle with anxiety while The Close Encounters Tour was taking place, he admitted that he would cry with his depression.
He said: ‘I was born kind of raw without the Elastoplast on and the world kept prodding this wound. I felt like the most sensitive person in the world.
‘It felt like I had nothing to combat that stuff. That was the early signs of depression – I would feel less than and I would feel embarrassed about it.
‘I would cry. I thought: “why am I so soft, why is this affecting me so much?” That mixed with the toxicity of fame, not comfortable meeting strangers and meeting strangers 30-40 times a day.
‘You feel sad you can’t give people what they want. Then you feel bad because people judge you badly. You are in a no-win situation. ‘Please be gentle I am still learning,’ is one of my song lyrics.
Looking back: Talking specifically about his 2006 struggle with anxiety while The Close Encounters Tour was taking place, he admitted that he would cry with his depression
Reflecting on that time, he explained how he felt, saying: ‘I can’t cope with it so I am not going to go out and that’s kind of what happened in 2006 – the paps, the press, people.
‘That level of fame that I once had was the equivalent of having a drone following you and reporting to the world on everything you do.
‘I went away for three years and intense spotlight that followed me moved away. And when I came out of my cave I tried to recreate what I had before. It took me a good 5 years to find my place on stage again.
‘If your computer is being overloaded something has got to give. I know the meditation is the key.
‘I know mantras and chanting is an inside job and still… everything I long for and want to achieve is outside of myself. Every day we are a brand new person.’
His anchor: Speaking about wife Ayda, Robbie said: ‘It does help that I am a beautiful relationship with a beautiful person I have this anchor and safe place’
Speaking about wife Ayda, Robbie said: ‘It does help that I am a beautiful relationship with a beautiful person I have this anchor and safe place. I have my happy place to build from.
‘When it was just me being a man child and going around the word and behaving the way a man-child behaves I didn’t have the tools or the safety net to build a better life for myself.
‘My wife has had so much therapy that she understands my nature. I have somewhere safe to go to.’
Here the full interview on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast
Source: Daily Mail
