Robbie Williams rollercoaster

03-03-2007 08:15

February 13 was always going to be a meaningful day for music. The eve of the BRITs - the biggest night in the UK music calendar - and the industry was buzzing. Could Lily Allen really win, would Amy Winehouse get drunk, was Russell Brand going to say something obscene?But little did we know it would also be the day that one of the biggest music stories of the year would break. And what's more - it wasn't even BRITs related.Well, not directly. Though it did concern Robbie 'King of the BRITs' Williams - who holds the record for most BRIT wins, having picked up a whopping 15 of them in his career. This year, however, he had only been nominated for one, Best British Live Act. The award went to Muse but, had there been a prize for biggest topic of gossip, or most-talked about star, Robbie would have won hands down.Announcing he had checked into an exclusive Arizona rehab clinic on his 33rd birthday sent shockwaves round the world. As the news hit the headlines, you could almost hear the jaws hitting the floor.Considering Robbie's past, it seems odd that the news came as such a surprise. Robbie had his first stay in rehab aged 23, two years after quitting Take That, the phenomenally successful 90s boy band that launched his career. And on numerous occasions he has openly admitted to suffering with depression and drug and alcohol problems.For some of the singer's more cynical critics, the temptation not to point out the coincidence of Robbie's timing was just too strong to resist. After all, Robbie's latest album 'Rudebox' hadn't been doing too well - it only stayed at number one in the album charts for one week, and the first single off it only went in at number four. For some musicians this would be a dream, but not for Robbie.