‘Take a look around the table,’ says Nigel Martin-Smith at one point in the film Better Man, a new biopic about the life of Robbie Williams. ‘In five years from now, we’ll all hate each other.’
By Miles Salter
It’s a neat line, and not far from the truth. Martin-Smith was a music manager. In the scene, his gang of young lads, Take That, are about to become hugely successful, and his prophetic line is accurate. Eventually, tensions lead to Robbie Williams’ departure and subsequent superstar status as a solo act. Better Man focuses on fame and its slippery underbelly, and the tension the singer experienced with his band mates, father and girlfriend, but most of all within himself.
Although ultimately a feel-good affair, the film is almost relentlessly honest about Williams’ personal demons, especially self-doubt and addiction. We’ve been here before of course. Elton John’s Rocket Man movie shares much the same trajectory as Better Man – both films move from bright lights and roaring crowds to group therapy in rehab institutions. Decades before, Bob Geldof sat comatose in an armchair in The Wall, based on Pink Floyd’s brilliant but misanthropic double album, also dwelling on a man who is falling apart while he has the world at his feet. (Tellingly, all three films feature main characters whose fathers were absent or emotionally unavailable. Good Dads are essential ingredients to a balanced life.)
Lots of people who have been famous talk about how it’s not what it is cracked up to be. ‘If anyone can tell me one good thing about fame,’ lamented Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, ‘I’d be very interested to hear it.’ Well, Mark, where shall we start? The money? The chauffeur driven cars? The swanky hotel rooms? The buffets, the free booze, the adulation? Knopfler’s statement is rather one sided. On the outside, looking in, fame looks intoxicatingly exciting, a wild, heady rush of adrenaline. What the outsider doesn’t glimpse is the accompanying darkness of hedonism, narcissism and ego.
As Better Man shows, fame can infantilise you. ‘They say your life freezes at the age you become famous,’ says Robbie at one point. Shielded from the need to grow up, he’s an overgrown kid, struggling to like himself and bolstered by drug use. ‘I’ve a raging cocaine habit, I’m a full-blown alcoholic, and I’m only 21,’ narrates Robbie at one point. Throughout the film, he’s depicted as a chimpanzee, which is oddly endearing – until the lovable chimp shows his sharp canine teeth.
If you get famous at a young age, it’s bad news. Most people at 19 or 20 don’t know who they are well enough to cope. The Beatles managed well because they had each other, and they’d already spent years honing their craft, playing for hours a night in Hamburg, and were able to laugh at some of the ridiculous situations they encountered. Others, like One Direction’s Liam Payne, fall foul to the gaudy hedonism that accompanies celebrity. When Payne plummeted from a Buenos Aries hotel balcony to his death, out of his head with drugs and imprisoned by an emotional cyclone, the tragedy was felt around the world. It was a grisly, sad end to a young life, but the story wasn’t particularly new. Elvis led a lonely life in Graceland, shackled to uppers and downers, his body eventually giving out while he was on the toilet. It was a sordid end for the man they called ‘The King’. Robbie’s life looked like it was heading the same way before he cleaned up and did some work on himself.
There are those who have the maturity to not be ruined by fame. Witness Paul McCartney, recently playing sold out shows in the UK, giving his all at 82. Bruce Springsteen is amenable and kind to those he meets. Taylor Swift, in 2024, donated generous chunks of cash to food banks and sizable tips to her truck drivers. Being famous needn’t turn you into an arsehole. It all depends on how grounded you are. ‘Your life freezes at the age you become famous.’ A celebrity turn might be better if it arrives later in life. For many of us, it won’t happen, or perhaps shows up fleetingly as we catch our allotted fifteen minutes. ‘Ordinary life, be my rock in times of trouble,’ sang Van Morrison on one of his songs.
So often in life, staying grounded, keeping your feet on the ground and knowing who you are is the most important thing you can do.
Better Man is in cinemas now.
Miles Salter is a writer based in York. His band is Miles and The Chain Gang.
