Robbie Williams has said people from the 90s “shouldn’t be held accountable for how we think and we feel now”.
The Rock DJ singer attended the European premiere of his biopic Better Man in London, calling it one of his “proudest moments” of his career to date.
Despite the film shining a light on the lows connected to being a young pop star, he told Sky News he holds no grievances for the past.
“People from the 90s shouldn’t be held accountable for how we think and we feel now,” he said.
“We didn’t know and now we do. So things can and will change. And I can already feel it around me, how I am treated and how we treat each other.
“But you can’t know what you don’t know, and we just didn’t know in the 90s and that has to be okay.”
Portrayed as a CGI chimpanzee, the film follows the rise, fall and resurrection of Robbie Williams as an artist – inspired by how the former Take That member views himself.
Robbie Williams as a chimpanzee in the film. Pic: Panther
Williams said after watching the film a number of times already, there is one part that continues to affect him.
“There’s the bit with Nicole Appleton that always gets me because she’s a wonderful person, she’s an angel,” he said.
“All the other people that I threw under the bus in the film, they did something to me…. I did something to her. I wasn’t a great boyfriend and I feel great shame about that. But we’re good [now]. I’ve got great love for her and she has for me, too.”
Directed by The Greatest Showman filmmaker Michael Gracey, the two-hour 11 minutes musical includes extended dance sequences and refreshed versions of his back catalogue of songs.
Gracey believes it is Williams’ vulnerability that allows this film to stand out from the other biopics.
“Not a lot of us know what it’s like to stand in front of 135 guys and perform, but I think strangely he has this incredibly relatable story,” he said.
“The thing I value the most is that he’s been really able to go to those dark places, which I think a lot of music biopics suffer from being sanitised or watered down.”
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He added: “No one could accuse this thing of those things, but I think you feel the light so much more when you go to those places.”
Better Man is in cinemas on 26 December.