Robbie Williams ‘refused’ to film Netflix documentary after being forced to face traumatic past and ‘mental breakdown’
ROBBIE Williams has told how difficult it was to face his traumatic past in his Netflix docuseries.
The Let Me Entertain You singer said he almost couldn’t go through with filming after being forced to watch old footage of himself performing at Knebworth.
The four-part Netflix show was announced last year, and an upcoming trailer reveals the pop star arriving for a meeting with one of the documentary makers.
Before sitting down in front of a laptop to comment on his legendary Knebworth Park gigs, Robbie, 49, tells them: “I’m late today because I didn’t want to come. There was… more of me that I didn’t want to face, I think.”
Robbie is asked: “Can you tell me what lies ahead of you?”
And he replies: “I’m about to watch somebody having a nervous, mental breakdown.”
The former hell-raiser manages to commentate on his iconic 2003 performance, and he recalls: “It’s the biggest experience of my life doing Knebworth.
“The blanket of people en mass. 125,000 each night, and it was seismic.
“This is the height of my career. This is the biggest thing that I’ve ever done. It’s all ramping up to this.”
He goes on: “I’m experiencing a huge high. Now, the audience are incredible. Everything I’m doing is working, and there is mass adulation. Professionally, I’m riding the crest of a wave.
“Everything seems to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
“Bigger albums. Bigger shows, bigger lifestyle, bigger houses. I am the centre of the pop culture world at the moment.”
Robbie has spoken frankly over the years about the affects his career has had on his health.
He told The Sunday Times Magazine in 2018: “This job is really bad for my health. It’s going to kill me. Unless I view it in a different way.
“Depression sprints through my family. I don’t know if I’d be this mentally ill without fame.
“I don’t think it would be as gross or as powerful if it hadn’t have been for fame.”
Robbie’s Netflix series will launch later this year and has been billed as “an unfiltered, in-depth examination of a global icon and natural-born-entertainer who had to navigate the highs and lows of being in the limelight for more than 30 years.”
As well as that, his movie biopic Better Man is just around the corner, as is the Take That biopic, which he will also be portrayed in.
Greatest Days, which will follow the story of Robbie and bandmates Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Jason Orange and Howard Donald, will be released on June 16.