Robbie Williams says he was once the target of a hitman hired to kill him but 'friends' made it go away
- Robbie Williams said a hitman was once hired to kill him.
- The popstar said threats against his life began at the height of his fame.
British pop star Robbie Williams made the extraordinary revelation that he was once the target of a hitman who was hired to kill him in a new interview.
The 47-year-old musician — who enjoyed a successful music career as both a solo artist as well as a member of the British boyband Take That — said the threats against his life began at the height of his fame.
"I've never, ever said this, but I had a contract put on me to kill me. I've never said that publicly before," Williams told the British tabloid The Daily Mirror. "It went away. I have friends. That stuff is the unseen stuff that happens when you become famous."
Williams later said that at one point in his career, he was "Michael Jackson-style famous."
"I became famous when I was 17, doing a boy band when I was 16, the boy band took off," he told the outlet.
"When I was 21 I left and then I had a solo career, sold 80 million albums, held the record for the most tickets sold in a day for a tour and blah, blah, blah…"
Williams continued to discuss the effects widespread fame had on the state of his mental health.
"Extreme fame and extreme success meets with anxiety and depression and mental illness. There's a few levels of fame and what it does to you. The first one is fuck," he said.
"There's a couple more I can't remember but the fourth one is acceptance. You sort of rally against your privacy being taken away from you and you rally against it by trying to be normal, trying to be normal but also I'm gonna be small so people don't beat you up. Like, 'I'm a dickhead, don't hurt me.'"
Williams — who now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children — said that he still doesn't enjoy meeting strangers.
"Thinking about it actually gives me anxiety. It's a trigger," he said.