Robbie Williams: "At 21 I was an alcoholic, a drug addict and I owed 300,000 pounds"

'El Hormiguero' kicked off the week with a visit from Robert Peter Williams, better known as Robbie Williams. The singer, songwriter and actor presented his biopic, entitled 'Better Man', which will be released in cinemas on 1 January. It is a very special project, where the role of the Briton is played by a monkey, which is based on the true story of the meteoric rise, dramatic fall and incredible resurgence of the pop superstar.

Robbie Williams presents 'Better Man'

After welcoming and greeting the guest, Pablo Motos congratulated Robbie Williams on 'Better Man' and asked him to tell whatever he wanted about the film that narrates his life. "It all started in 1974, when I was born and...", joked the 50-year-old artist at first. "Well, the truth is that I have had a very intense and very unusual life since I was 16 years old when I became famous and I have had to manage that ever since. With drug addictions, bad friends, bad company, bad managers, weird record companies, bad decisions, with love, without love, without self-esteem, hating myself, with a pretty complicated inner life... I think we are all people and we want to be seen, we want to be heard and we want to be loved, basically that's the story the film tells, a human being who wants to be loved and seen," said the English singer-songwriter.

Robbie Williams and the influence of his father on his career

After a commercial break, Pablo Motos stressed the importance of Robbie Williams' father. "My father was a comedian and singer and, in addition, he was a tremendously charismatic person who attracted people, so everyone was in love with him. He had a huge personality, a lot of energy, and I wanted to be like that. Just with his presence, he changed people's faces and they went from having sad faces to having happy faces," said Monday's guest, whose father abandoned him when he was still a child. "The version that the film tells is the version that my mother tells. Surely, my father's version would be very different. And well, each of us are products of our childhood. So my children will be the product of the childhood I am giving them. Surely, I am making mistakes that I don't even know I am making, and my parents also made them, but you only know that when you have children and you realize that your parents were also children, because I am still a child. Each of us is a product of our childhood, but what matters is what we do with that information to become mature people," the Briton continued.

Robbie Williams and his complicated period of success, drugs and alcohol

Pablo Motos wanted to know why Robbie Williams thinks he was chosen to be part of Take That at the age of 16. "Well, because I winked. Seriously, because I went to audition and the story goes that it was all about talking. The audition didn't go very well, but as I was leaving, I opened the door and looked back at the manager, and I didn't know what to do, so I winked at him. And thanks to that wink, he said, 'This kid's got something, let him come back.' So if I hadn't winked that eye, none of this would have happened," said the artist, who thanks to that project achieved worldwide fame, a success that led him to fall into alcohol and drugs. "I fell into rampant alcoholism, into an addiction to alcohol, but when you're 20 years old, which was the age I was then, in the 90s, you didn't talk about addiction, you didn't talk about depression, you didn't talk about anxiety and it was just there. I was 19 when I first thought I had a problem, but I buried it," said the Englishman.

At one point in the film, Take That's producer says that they would all hate each other in five years but that they would all be rich. The host of 'El Hormiguero' wanted to know if this prophecy came true. "Yes, it came true, but then I ended up with a debt of 300,000 pounds. The story is very long, but when I left Take That I had 1.2 million pounds. Then I took my record company to court and had to pay 1.5 million pounds. So when I was 21 years old I was an alcoholic, a drug addict and I owed 300,000 pounds," said Robbie Williams, who was asked by Pablo Motos how he felt when he left the band and acquired that debt while his former bandmates continued to perform and make money. "The truth is that I didn't feel anything because I was consuming a lot of cocaine and cocaine anesthetizes you. And it also destroys you, but at the same time it gives you a tremendous feeling of false security. So I took advantage of all that sense of security because I only looked forward and only saw success ahead of me, even though in reality my life was a mess, a hell," he admitted.

The day Robbie Williams suffered a panic attack and thought he was going to die

Robbie Williams has recalled the occasion when he suffered a panic attack before going on stage to perform when he had already started his solo career. "I suffered from stage fright. Now I don't have it so much, although I'm not completely cured of stage fright, but then there was a time when I was going to do a concert in front of 60,000 people and I told my manager that I wasn't going to go out. He tried to convince me and convince me that it was okay and I told him that I was going to die, that we had to go. He tried to tell me ten times that it was going to be okay and in the end he came up to me and said, 'Look, kid, if you don't do this concert, you're going to lose 1.5 million pounds'. Then I said, 'Take me on stage," the singer-songwriter recalled.

The co-director and co-producer of Atresmedia's entertainment show, which airs Monday to Thursday from 9.45pm on Antena 3, was curious to know if he still suffers from panic attacks. "Not as bad as I used to, because I actually love my job now and I love my life. Now I'm actually feeling a great joy for the good time I'm in. Now I get to enjoy what I couldn't enjoy before and I'm not as stage fright as I used to be. It's just that sometimes when Robbie has to get on stage, Robert has to do it because Robbie doesn't show up. And that's when I'm scared, but it's only a couple of songs," said Robbie Williams.

U2's Bono, Robbie Williams and some magic mushrooms

Robbie Williams then recounted an anecdote that he starred in at the home of Bono, the leader of U2, under the effects of some hallucinogenic mushrooms. "I was at Bono's house, it was very early in the morning and there was a big party with a lot of people. And I started to look at a painting and it was the best painting I had ever seen in my life. And I thought: 'Of course, how could Bono not have the best painting in the world if he is the best rock singer in the world'. Then Bono comes up to me and I say: 'Bono, this painting is the most beautiful I've ever seen in my life'. And he said: 'Robbie it's a window'. And it was," he confessed.