Nobody saw it coming. The young man came out of nowhere. She ran towards Robbie Williams and He gave him a strong push in the back that sent him off the stage.. I thought he was an imposter and he was willing to prove it. It was a terrifying incident for the pop star. I couldn’t hold back the tears when he explained what happened and confessed: “I’m really scared”. Still, that night of February 21, 2001, in Stuttgart, Williams he kept singing until the end. It could have been much worse.
At 27 years old, Robert Peter Williams He lived at the top and on the British, European and American stages. After publishing his third album, ‘Sing when you’re winning’ – In August 2000 – he embarked on a new tour which he called ‘The Sermon on the Mount’. ““I was very nervous about the tour and I didn’t know if I really wanted to do it.” This is what the writer and journalist Mark McCrum, author of the biography ‘Somebody Someday’, tells it, who accompanied him on the tour and asked him Why did he put himself under so much pressure?if he did it to have his talent recognized or for fame: “No, no. I wanted to be famous. “If I weren’t Robbie Williams now, I would go to the casting for Big Brother.”
He had what he wanted. There was no doubt. And the tour was going from strength to strength. The European stage of ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ had stopped in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf… and on February 21 arrived at the German city Stuttgart. The appointment was at the Hanns Martin Schleyer Pavilion. Absolutely full and a dedicated audience that, suddenly, went into shock. Around 10:00 at night, a stranger came out from backstage and ran towards Robbie. At that moment she was singing ‘Supreme’ situated on the edge of the stage. Nobody saw it coming. He rushed towards the singer and gave him a strong push in the back that sent him off the stage.. He fell in the security area, five feet away.
Abruptly the concert stopped. ItHis band members threw down their instruments and ran quickly to help him.. The guitarist tried to grab the aggressor and, in the struggle, he also fell into the pit, where He was restrained by security personnel. Williams returned to the stage and he asked his 7,000 stunned fans, “Is everyone okay?” Before resuming the ‘interrupted’ song, he added, “We can’t let an idiot like this ruin our night. I will continue for you”. Later, jokingly, she would say, “He wasn’t my type.”
Robbie Williams fans at his Munich concert in 2000 / Stefan M. Prager
During rest time, Robbie called his entire team into the locker room. With dejected faces they arrived. The singer calmed them down with words of encouragement: “They pushed me off the stage. Everything’s fine. I don’t know whether to cry, laugh, be angry or sad. What I don’t want is for you to be sad. I fell and hit my head. But everything is fine and let’s finish the concert. “He was a nutcase… I really don’t want to know what happened.” He even allowed himself to joke by pointing to his rival, Liam Gallagher: “I don’t know if I have offended you with my ‘Liamisms’ or if I have fucked his girlfriend or something like that.”
Liam Gallagher and Robbie Williams / Brian Rasic
Later, still in the locker room, he addressed the camera: “I feel lucky to having landed on someone’s head. My knee is a little bad and my arm hurts a little, But I’m going to return to the stage and finish the performance.” And he continues: “Because in the past they have thrown things at me. Bottles that have hit me in the head and things like that, and what I did then was leave the stage and not return. But that’s not what I’m going to do this time. I will stay until the end”. However, her fortitude collapsed when she thought about what could have happened: “I could have had a knife, I could have had anything.” With a broken voice, trying to hold back tears, he added: “I don’t want to lament, fall into self-pity, but I’m really scared…. “And I’m not just scared tonight, I’m scared for a huge percentage of my life.”
While this was happening, the aggressor, a 20-year-old German man, was detained by the security team before being handed over to the police. But they did not transfer him to the police station, but to a psychiatric clinic. A spokesperson for the force told the media: “A man he managed to go from the auditorium to the backstage…No trace was found that he had ingested alcohol or drugs and he was not carrying a weapon. He told officers that Robbie Williams of the stage was an impostor, it was not the real one, but a copy. And she tried to prove it”.
Robbie Williams at the ‘Nobody Someday’ premiere / Fred Duval
The question was how the young man had managed to circumvent the strict security measures surrounding the pop star, He had sneaked backstage and pounced on the singer. Nobody understood what happened. According to those attending the concert, “everything was full of ‘gorillas’.” The next day, a close aide to Robbie told The Mirror: “It was a terrifying experience for him. Thank God, he didn’t suffer serious injuries. The guy appeared out of nowhere. It caught us all by surprise, including the security guards.” At the hotel after the concert, Robbie was “very depressed.” Easily It could have been much worse. Thanks to the fact that the attacker was not armed.
A photo of Robbie Williams in 2000 / Diana Scrimgeour
That February 21, 2001, Robbie was “really scared.” He had lived a terrifying experience. But he encouraged his people and responded to his audience. She said she would stay until the end and so he did. With fear still in the body, He returned to the stage and sang six more songs until completing his performance.
