Robbie Williams has opened up about his drug use at the height of his career as a pop star.
The singer, 50, appeared on KIIS FM’s Kyle and Jackie O Show on Wednesday to discuss his new biopic, Better Man, in which he is portrayed by a CGI monkey.
The movie sees Robbie narrate a fictionalised version of his life, tracing his epic journey to stardom from boy band heart-throb to stadium rocker.
The musical explores Robbie’s harrowing struggle with substance use and shows him using drugs which resemble cocaine and heroin before he enters rehab.
With some elements of the film fictionalised, viewers were left questioning whether Robbie actually did use heroin and cocaine during his drug addiction battle.
Sydney radio host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson questioned Robbie during a wide-ranging chat on her radio show, with the Angels hitmaker revealing he did in fact use heroin.
Robbie Williams (pictured) has opened up about his drug use at the height of his career while promoting his new biopic Better Man on a Sydney radio show
He admitted he was ‘fortunate’ never to have become addicted to it and explained that he was more drawn to stimulant drugs.
‘Yeah, yeah, I did heroin, I did the smack,’ he told hosts Jackie and Kyle Sandilands.
‘But it wasn’t my kind of thing, I preferred uppers rather than downers, so fortunately I never became addicted to smack, but I gave it a good go.’
Robbie sought help for his drug addiction multiple times during the height of his fame, including when he checked into rehab centres in 1995 and 2007.
Robbie added that sobriety is ongoing process, but he is finally ‘loving’ life and is able to get joy from other places rather than drugs.
‘I think, you know, obviously you can never say I’m fixed. But I’ve had the longest run of sobriety,’ he shared.
‘Also, I think my brain is rewiring itself to a place now where I’m deriving joy from places that I couldn’t derive joy from.
‘And they say in the program, don’t leave before the miracle happens. I can tell you the miracle has happened and is happening. And I’m loving my life and my place in it.’
Robbie (pictured in 1993) struggled with substance abuse at the height of his pop star fame and has revealed he used heroin among other drugs
Robbie turned to drugs for ‘safety’ after struggling in boy band Take That (all pictured in 1993) and went to rehab on multiple occasions, including in 1995 and 2007
In his new biopic, Robbie details the highs and lows of his career in the spotlight and told how he turned to drugs for ‘safety’ after struggling in boy band Take That.
‘I was ingesting everything I could get my hands on – ecstasy, cocaine, drinking. I’m literally drinking like a bottle of vodka a night before going into rehearsals, so that’s happening every night,’ he revealed in a 2023 Netflix documentary.
‘We are looking at somebody in freefall, addicted to cocaine and alcohol. It’s impossible to help myself, it’s impossible to stop.’
Robbie was picked to be in Nigel Martin-Smith’s group Take That in 1990, but felt his place within the band was never ‘safe’ and he was almost kicked out just months in.
‘The early days of Take That were spent in rehearsals,’ he recently shared on BBC documentary Boybands Forever.
‘I had no dance background and the routines were so intricate so I would have trouble picking up the steps which would make me look like I was being lazy.
‘This was brought up in not a favourable way. Let’s just say Nigel wasn’t very happy with my application.
‘”It won’t be difficult to kick you out of the band and get someone else with dark hair from Stoke-On-Trent and call him Robbie,” is what I remember.
His new biopic Better Man sees Robbie portrayed by a CGI monkey as it traces his epic journey to stardom from boy band heart-throb to stadium rocker
‘It made me feel like my place within the band was never safe or guaranteed. I was not loved, not even liked and I was 16.’
Robbie was the youngest member of the band – alongside Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Jason Orange and Howard Donald – and was in the group for five years until he went solo in 1995.
He also had a famous falling out with bandmate Gary Barlow in the 1990s – which is documented in Better Man with Robbie insisting it was right to include it.
He said: ‘I love Gaz and we’ve healed an awful lot of stuff, but that’s the complicated thing,’ he said.
‘But to facilitate the third act of our careers we have to talk about the past and in this film I think and spoke like I did when I was 19, 20 and that’s difficult.
‘And I feel guilt for causing pain to Gaz and triggering a response he doesn’t want or need, but I think its incredibly important to tell my story – warts and all.’
Robbie also confessed that Gary wasn’t happy with the representation of him in the film and even called the Let Me Entertain You singer to tell him as much.
‘He said, because he’s a grown up and we’re grown ups and we’re not angry with each other, but he said ”I come off worse than Darth Vader in the first Star Wars”,’ Robbie admitted.
