How ‘blobby’ Robbie Williams shed 4st after swapping ‘heart-stopping’ drug binges for gym, yoga… and NO sex
SPORTING a toned tummy and muscular physique, Robbie Williams is far from “blobby” and in the best shape he’s been in decades.
The former Take That star, 49, has gone through radical weight gain and loss over the years, primarily down to addiction issues.
Robbie was cruelly branded “the fat dancer” from the band by Noel Gallagher and once dubbed ‘Blobby Williams’, but now he has shed four stone and ditched his 40-a-day cigarette habit.
Speaking to The Sun this week, he revealed he had swapped drugs and booze for testosterone to treat his depression – although coming off that had halted his sex life with wife Ayda Field.
He joked: ” Sometimes now, though, Ayda will turn to me on the sofa and say, ‘We should do sex,’ and I’m sitting there eating a tangerine and just sort of shrug.”
Here we look at how the once hard-partying star has overhauled his life and traded a life of addiction for hours on the treadmill.
‘Morbidly obese like farm animal’
Robbie rose to fame in Take That in the Nineties alongside Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen and Jason Orange.
Back then the fresh-faced heart-throb, who was in his 20s, was slender with muscular arms – but by 1995, when he left the band, that had changed.
With his newfound freedom and fame, Robbie overindulged and admitted drug use led to binge eating which made him “morbidly obese… like a farm animal”.
On the At Homes With The Williamses podcast, he recalled one bad food binge, joking that cake manufacturer Mr Kipling was a “b******”.
Robbie said: “I went to the supermarket on my first shop, once stoned. Don’t go to a supermarket stoned. You make bad choices.
“I opened the fridge and there was this whole Mr Kipling cake. And I can remember this moment going, ‘Hang on, I don’t live with my mum. I can eat all that cake.’”
‘Heart-stopping’ drug binges
As Robbie’s career took off, so too did his addiction issues. By 2007 he was admitted into a rehab clinic on his 33rd birthday.
He had been taking speed, acid, heroin, cocaine and what he described as “colossal, heart-stopping amounts” of prescription drugs.
The dangerous cocktails left the superstar’s health in tatters. By his own admission he said: “I might have been 24 hours away from dying.”
He described trying his “best to balance” illegal and prescription drugs “against one another” – which made them even more deadly – at the height of his addiction.
In 2009, Robbie said: ‘It was the American addiction – prescription pills, it wasn’t the best period of my life.
“You see Anna Nicole Smith goes off – pills, Michael Jackson goes off – pills and Heath Ledger. I can relate to all of that.”
‘Constant fight’
Robbie admits throughout his life he’s been in “a constant fight” with his weight and half-jokingly stated: “Inside me, there’s a giant person.”
He added: “My whole being and my whole body wants me to go in the opposite direction and be morbidly obese.”
To combat this, he used to take “very extreme” measures, which he attributed to his addiction issues and says never left him happy.
He said: “I’d done some very extreme things before where I’ve basically lived on fresh air; broth, some mango, and that was it.
“I was so emotional and depressed and had all of these feelings coming up because my body was starving itself.”
Last year, Robbie told us that he will forever battle his addictions – especially to “sugar”, which he has “never been able to maintain… an abstinence from”.
He added: “There is no balance – moderation doesn’t exist. I do not have the ability to make that happen. It is either fat or thin.”
‘Half smoke, half man’
Robbie first tried to quit smoking back in 2012 after the birth of his daughter Theodora Rose – and it went well for four years until he relapsed.
The 40-cigarettes-a-day puffer admitted: “When I smoke, I’m half smoke, half man. I’m a man of extremes.”
By 2018, he pledged to quit again and struck a deal with Ayda, setting a date to stop the deadly habit a year later.
Robbie’s motivation was avoiding “premature death” so that he could spend the most amount of time possible with his kids, but he still was cautious.
He said: “I’m really scared about putting weight on. I’m terrified in fact about that, but staying alive for my children will be worth the weight gain.”
Instead of checking into rehab or trying expensive celebrity treatments, the singer tried to curb his cravings with a colouring book.
In a video Robbie said: “Art is good for my mind. Anyone who is giving up smoking with me, keep on. The struggle is real.
“It’s been sort of six out of ten difficult and then in the last hour and a half I’ve just collapsed, panic attacks, overwhelmed… I’ve had to get out of the house just to calm down a little.”
In another video he added: “Now I am vegan, I do pilates every day, I do yoga every day and have a really big burger on a Sunday.”
‘Doorman’ shoulders
In a bid to treat his depression, Robbie was prescribed testosterone – however, it came with side effects.
Instead of bulking up naturally, he found certain parts of his body became supersized and his libido was through the roof.
He told us: “I got these massive square shoulders and started to look like a doorman. It wasn’t a good look.
“But the sex we had when I was on testosterone was incredible; it was all the time. We were insatiable… we couldn’t take our hands off each other.”
This is the best I’ve been solidly for a long time
Robbie Williams
Since coming off the medication, Robbie’s continued to strive for a better balance and now is focusing on portion sizes.
Just last month, he was snapped flaunting his toned body in snaps taken by Ayda.
Robbie explained: “At the moment I am just eating less. It is a constant slog and it is not a natural way of being. For me, what is normal is being twice this size.”
Previously he joked that his “relentless” battle with weight was fuelled “vanity” and his job.
Robbie added: “Thank God… because if I didn’t do what I do for a living I dread to think what I would look like and what I would become.”
Now the singer is an ambassador for WW – formerly Weight Watchers – and admits he’s “found a middle way” thanks to their food plans.
Robbie said: ‘I’ve either been overweight and unhappy or been extreme and underweight and unhappy. Both of those places have led to depression.
‘This is the best I’ve been solidly for a long time. Consistency is the best I’ve ever been.”