Robbie Williams once sold 1.6 million concert tickets in a single day
The youngest member of Take That, who joined at 16 after his mother spotted an advert, became Britain's biggest solo pop star. Robbie Williams holds a record 18 Brit Awards and a Guinness record for ticket sales in one day, and 13 of his 14 studio albums have topped the UK chart.
Robert Peter Williams comes from Stoke-on-Trent, where he arrived on 13 February 1974. His parents ran the Red Lion pub in Burslem before his father, who performed as Pete Conway, took over the Port Vale Social Club. At St Margaret Ward Catholic School in Tunstall he acted in school plays, most memorably as the Artful Dodger in Oliver!. In 1990 his mother saw an advert for a new boy band, and he met Mark Owen on the day of his audition with manager Nigel Martin-Smith. Gary Barlow wrote and sang most of the material, but Williams took lead on hits such as Everything Changes, and clashes over drink, drugs and the band's rules followed before he left in 1995.
His solo debut, Life thru a Lens in 1997, contained Angels, his best-selling single, and the follow-up gave him his first number ones, Millennium and She's the One. He has had seven UK chart-topping singles and six albums among the country's 100 best sellers. In 2006 his Close Encounters Tour sold 1.6 million tickets in one day, and in 2003 three Knebworth shows drew more than 375,000 people, then the biggest music event in Britain.
He returned to Take That in 2010 to co-write and sing on Progress, at the time the fastest-selling record of the century, and the tour that followed sold 1.34 million tickets in under 24 hours. In 2011 Barlow confirmed he had left again, amicably, and the two later worked together on projects including the West End musical The Band.
Besides his Brits, including four as Best British Male, he was voted Greatest Artist of the 1990s and entered the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. The BPI has certified 20.36 million of his albums in Britain, and worldwide sales are estimated at 75 to 80 million records. Stoke-on-Trent gave him its freedom in 2014, and a film about his life, Better Man, appeared in 2024.
Source: Robbie Williams
