Robbie Williams on aborted baby that was supposed to save his life

Robbie Williams has made an extraordinary film about his life. It’s called “Better Man” and will be released in cinemas in Germany on January 2nd, 2025. In the autobiographical film, Williams is portrayed by a monkey – the explanation follows in the trailer: “I’m one of the biggest pop stars in the world, but I actually always thought of myself as a bit more primitive.”

The singer is currently on a cinema tour to promote his film. The film tells the life story of the singer. Scenes of how he sat in the bathtub as a little boy and received encouragement, how he rose steeply in the music business with Take That and eventually established himself as a solo artist. But also what he looked like and what challenges the global star had to face privately.

One story is particularly touching. In 1997, Robbie Williams and Nicole Appleton met backstage at the Top Of The Pops show. He was just starting out as a solo artist with his first album “Life thru a Lens”, and she was a member of the successful girl band “All Saints”. The encounter quickly developed into a deep love and a relationship. But just two years later, in 1999, it collapsed again.

One reason was certainly the abortion of their child. According to British news portal The Sun, a scene from the film shows Williams tenderly putting his hand out of Appleton’s stomach and saying: “This baby is saving my life.” But that shouldn’t happen. In the fourth month of her pregnancy, Appleton is said to have given in to pressure from her record company and aborted the baby. For the benefit of both careers. She herself said of this drastic experience in her 2002 biography “Together”: “I couldn’t believe what I had done. I wanted to kill myself.”

From this point on, Williams would also have to struggle with his drug and alcohol addiction for another decade. The support in the form of a family was denied him at this moment in his life. The British singer had been on stage since he was 16 years old; he felt like a “trained circus monkey,” he says. A reference to his choice of film character. He is said to have had his last stay in a rehabilitation clinic in 2007.

Ahead of the film’s London premiere, Williams said: “She had to abort our child. That’s hard and triggering. The Nic thing is the hardest part of the film for me.”

Because Nicole Appleton could feel the same way, Robbie Williams got the go-ahead from his ex-girlfriend to produce the film: “When it comes to Nic, I was the person who did something bad – and I’m not talking about that she had an abortion. I didn’t. But she’s wonderful, kind and brave and wants her side of the story to be shown. So I called her on FaceTime after she got out of the screening and it was a single one Emotional chaos. Tears flowed. In the few moments we were able to talk, we just said: “Triggered.”

At the film’s premiere in LA, Robbie Williams emphasized that filming helped him process: “Hopefully it’s a healing experience for me – and for her, because she doesn’t have the version of me that she experienced back then “I feel very ashamed that I didn’t put my best foot forward because she deserves only the best – and she didn’t get that.”

These days, Appleton and Williams remain on friendly terms. The singer even appeared at its film premiere with her husband Stephen Haines. In 2006, Robbie Williams found the support and family he always wanted in Ayda Fields. The American actress gave the former “Take That” singer four children and apparently also helped him get clean.