Robbie Williams Says He Suffers From “Inside Tourette’s”

Robbie Williams says that he’s been privately fighting a battle against what he calls “inside Tourette’s.” The British pop star and subject of Oscar-nominated film Better Man shared the news while appearing on the comedian Paul Welsh’s podcast, I’m ADHD! No You’re Not.

“I’ve just realized that I have Tourette’s, but they don’t come out,” Williams said on the podcast. “I was just walking down the road the other day and I realized that these intrusive thoughts are ‘inside Tourette’s.’”

Tourette syndrome, as defined by the CDC, is a condition of the nervous system often defined by sudden, repetitive sounds or movements, often known as tics, that can be triggered by factors such as stress, excitement, or tiredness.

Williams, who kicked off his Britpop Tour in May, says that he has been an “Olympian at masking” his symptoms, and that his condition makes performing live extremely difficult. “I have a very complicated relationship with touring and performing live,” he said on the podcast. “People say, ‘Oh, you going on tour? You must be really, really excited.’ Not really. I’m terrified.”

The “Angels” singer is aware that he may not present as someone who gets stage fright. “I will look full of bravado and look pompous and look smug and do these grand gestures, which have worked for me because they put my face on the poster and people still buy tickets,” he said. “But actually what’s happening is I feel like the opposite of that all the time, most of the time.”

While it may be difficult for him to perform live, Williams says that the condition is improving. “It’s getting better,” he said. “I would say it’s gotten better from 45 onwards. This particular tour that I’m now in, I’m very pleased to say, for me, is that I’m dead excited to do my show that I’m doing tomorrow and I was excited to do one last week.”

The 51-year-old is not the only famous singer who struggles with the neurological condition. Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi in 2023 had to take a break from music after his tics prevented him from completing a performance at Glastonbury. Billie Eilish also recounted being affected by Tourette syndrome, which she was diagnosed with when she was 11. “If you film me for long enough, you’re going to see a lot of tics,” she told David Letterman on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction in 2022.

Williams credits his wife, Ayda Field Williams, for helping adjust his perspective on performing live, highlighting how she emphasized how lucky he is to perform for a living and how he may not always have the chance to play stadiums.

“And in that moment, thinking about maybe never being able to do it again because of waning popularity or death or whatever it is, in that moment, it just changed my perception,” he says. “But 80,000 people never changed my opinion about me.”

Original story appeared in VF Italia.