Robbie Williams's 'magical' romance with Geri Halliwell saved him after rehab
Robbie Williams’ summer of spice with Geri Halliwell meant much more than a fling, he reveals in his new documentary, as he discusses the key women in his life.
The former Take That singer, 49, looks wistful as he looks back to 2000 when he says he shares a “magical” time with the Spice Girl. They enjoyed a lengthy holiday in the South of France with his songwriting partner Guy Chambers and his wife Emma.
Robbie says on camera it was the happiest he had been in a decade with only his paranoia stopping it potentially becoming a longer and more serious relationship. Reflecting on it, Robbie says: “It was a very confusing relationship, because she’s a girl and I’m a boy, we are very good friends trying to sort out the wreckage of the past.
Robbie and Geri in St Tropez (Fraser Jason)
Night out with Nicole in 1998 (Alpha-Cisotti-Deidda)“Our relationship starts when I am in AA. You are told not to get into a relationship in the first year and I get it, you can’t even look after a cactus, let alone somebody else. I just found her company very very easy, there is a silliness. We really got on really well. It was fun. And we were just a little gang that were sharing a very magical moment, in a magical place.”
Footage shows Robbie and Geri cuddling up and joking around as well as wrestling on the grass and singing songs on-board a boat. Asked by the documentary director Joe Pearlman if he is happy in the footage, Robbie replies “yes”. When the narrator says for the first time in all the footage, Robbie adds: “Yes. In all of the footage.”
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At this point viewers have seen his career from 1990-2000, and after the trip Robbie was compelled to write No1 single Eternity about her. In the documentary, Robbie adds: “But wherever we went, the paparazzi were there before we got there. Very private personal moments became public property. And we were just dumbfounded how this could be happening.
“I bumped into a guy who’s a paparazzi. He told me that it was Geri doing that. Now I don’t think that’s true for one second, but at the time I did believe it. It just goes to show what being in the spotlight can do to your psyche, when you can’t trust anybody. It ruined in some way the memory of such an important part of my life. Such a joyous occasion.”
Robbie, who said earlier this week he estimated he has slept with 110 women, also discusses his time with All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, who he met in 1997. The pair were twice engaged but he says he looks like “a child talking to his mum” in footage of him on the phone to her.
In another clip he jokingly proposes on the phone and recalls: “I guess I’m trying to convince myself I’m the kind of person that is ready for that kind of commitment. I know I’m not. I’m in no fit state to offer myself as a partner. The relationship with Nic ended few months after this.”
Robbie has four children with wife Ayda (Dave Benett/WireImage)The majority of the rest of the film is taken up with his roller-coaster career, and also covers how he turned to drink and drugs to cope with the pressure. His mental health suffered as he tried to beat his addictions but he also took to heart any criticism he read.
On watching the archive footage for the Netflix documentary, Robbie says: “It was like watching a crash you were involved in, but in slo-mo. It was like enduring your mental illness at a very, very slow pace, over a very, very long time.” The film reaches a climax with a gig in Leeds and Robbie has a panic attack that lasts the entire gig.
He is forced to play another concert the following night even though he is in no fit state, because of the fears of the financial costs. The film ends on a much more upbeat note, showing Robbie much more content as a father of four. He says making the film has also been beneficial, adding: “It’s a tough watch. But I feel good because there was a lot of levity and a lot of humour and a lot of silliness.
"There is a softness in this footage that I wasn’t expecting to see. It is cathartic. I will walk out of here less heavy emotionally, than I was before. I can stick a pin in this now and move on. I have some acceptance and love for me. I am a different person now, thank the lord. There is a happy ending, for me anyway. The god-shaped hole has been filled with four kids and a wife.”
He reflects he is lucky to have met wife Ayda, who he married in 2010. He adds: “I’m on my way to being really really happy. The miracles that have been bestowed upon me in this life are so bountiful and incredible. It’s different now, what a joy, what a glorious adventure.”
* Robbie Williams is released on Netflix on November 8.
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