Robbie Williams reveals how Elton John checked him into rehab and helped him get sober
Robbie Williams and Elton John. (Jeff Spicer/WireImage and Jeff Spicer/WireImage)
Robbie Williams has opened up about how his friend Elton John changed his life by checking him into rehab and helping him get sober.
Speaking on tonight’s episode of The Jonathon Ross Show, Williams explained that during the early days of his alcohol and substance abuse, John forced him to get the help he needed.
He told host Jonathon Ross: “In the early days when I was first getting sober, there was a week until I had to go to rehab and I had two vocals to do on my first album, one of them was ‘Angels’ and one of them was ‘Let Me Entertain You’.
“I was going to do these vocals then go to rehab. Elton invited me to his house to listen to the work that I’d done so far.”
He said that on his way to the studio, he played a game where he would stop at every pub he saw and have a half pint.
“I’d had ten half pints before I’d got to the studio,” Williams continued. “I ended up under the mixing desk, had a bit of red wine and then I knew I had to get to Elton’s for three o’clock.
“I went round to Elton’s and he opened the door and I was button crooked and I’d got food down me and red wine stains.
“He was like ‘You’re going to go to rehab now’ and I went: ‘I can’t go to Rehab now, I’m going next week.’ He said: ‘No you’ve got to go to Rehab now’… this kept going back and forth at the door.”
“Bless him, I was still drunk, he took me to his house in Windsor, put me up for the evening.”
Robbie Williams said Elton John brought in a doctor and a psychiatrist to get him to rehab
Williams continued: “I wake up but I haven’t opened my eyes and there’s a knock on my shoulder and I look and there’s… Elton and David Furnish and a doctor and a psychiatrist and they are here to take me away.
“I’m like, ‘I don’t think I’m getting out of this.’ I was going to use my charm.”
He added: “Elton is the most loving, generous man you could imagine and he has helped so many people over the years. It was a big moment being in Elton John’s kitchen sobering up over some carrots thinking: ‘How am I going to get myself out of this mess?'”
Williams has been to rehab more than once, but the 45-year-old said he has not had any alcohol for 19 years.
He said: “It becomes who you are. At the beginning you are thinking, ‘How am I going to get through day one?’ and then ‘How am I going to get through week one?’
“I was with the kids last week and they were doing riding and I just had this moment where I was just looking at the kids on the horses and I just thought: ‘I’d have never imagined that I could feel this content and this happy.'”
This week’s episode of The Jonathan Ross Show will be on Saturday November 23 at 10.10pm on ITV.
