I looked up a couple of your fans online and they willingly gave me your address so I could write you. How come you move without telling me, changing your phone numbers without letting me know, how come you’re basically ignoring me these days?
I’ve read your book, right, and the thing is… it’s not my fault that I’m at ease with my sexuality and you’re not. I know who I am, right, and one should think that what we did on that day should have been enough to convince you as well, but hey, by all means, don’t admit it. Fine. Whatever, right. I just thought we had a great time together and what do you do? You ignore me. Why, I ask. Why? And I’ve realised, it’s because you’re jealous. You’re jealous because I’m confident and open and out there , man!
I’ve taken out a few excerpts from your book. I call them evidence 1 to 4. Allow me to start with No.1: “Rob rarely mentions his first solo-single, a cover of George Michael’s “Freedom 90″. It has been written out of his history. It appears on none of his albums and will not appear on his greatest hits album.” What I don’t understand here, Rob, is why you refuse to acknowledge the fact that we once had something special, a friendship, a laugh, everything dude, and now… now you won’t even acknowledge that you’ve recorded one of my songs. A song of which I’m very proud of, one I sing every time I do a live concert, and you won’t even have it on your greatest hits album. Sure, it’s not as good as mine – by a long shot – but hey, what can you expect?
No.2: “‘Yeah’, he says, ‘but when there’s talent around like me, when there’s evil around like me, there’s no competition.’ Pause. ‘And he’s made a massive mistake by not releasing a ballad.’ He’s stopped making videos too, I point out. ‘Yeah,’ says Rob. ‘He thinks he’s George Michael or someone.’” Are you suggesting I never release any material and never make any videos? Rob, darling, honey… I’ve been an artist for 22 odd (and I really mean that) years, and I’ve left a great body of work behind. I’ve released some great stuff, all of it in fact, compared to certain others that throw albums out there like they were… something else. Without any consideration for the consequences or the record buyers. Your fans aren’t as rich as you and I, and it’s only fair that they shouldn’t have to spent ten quid on one of your albums more than once or twice every decade. Come on, show some consideration, for God’s sake! And regarding videos. I make videos! I made the most expensive video in Universal history – Freeek! as you, of course, remember (or at least you should remember the lobster suit) – and I made a political satire and I made a crap video for Amazing, and I made a video costing the grand total of £3,50 for Flawless and now recently I put together a video for Round Here. It was filmed last year, but it’s out. You can catch it on the Box. On Sky.
No.3: ‘Ooooh,’ says Rob when he hears this, in an isn’t-he-tetchy-today? tone. ‘What I make of this is, I must have been a huge torn in his side for a long time. And he hasn’t been able to deal with it. But I’ll bring it up at the next community meeting’.” I stand by my position regarding your record deal. You got a better deal than me, what do you expect? Well, I got a better deal (without going into details here)(I got royalties for all my previous work)(though I have to release a duets album), but you f*cked all of us by accepting a whopping 50 million. FIFTY MILLION, Rob! You know what that means, don’t you? It means I have to sell my LA house, my St. Tropez house, other houses and pull money out of other investments to match you. And you know how I like matching. Like when I was on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with Ronan Keating (for whom I’m going to write a new song!)(Hah!)(If you’re been a little bit less of a twat, I could have done the same for you, but hey…!) I said, “If we miss this question I’ll match it so we go up to 64,000 anyway.” And we didn’t miss on that. But we missed on the next. So I matched the 32,000 we’d already won to make it 64,000. Have you any idea the things I had to do I match your 50 million? It’s bollocks, do you hear me, bollocks!
No.4: “One Friday morning he sits at the dinner room and makes a CD for Matt Lucas, whose thirtieth birthday party he will be attending that evening. He cuts out figures from Attitude magazine to customise the CD case and cover. For the rest, he simply uses George Michael’s “Patience” CD case. He titles the compilation ‘Lonely On Top’.” How come I wasn’t invited to Matt Lucas’s birthday party? I invited him to mine! This is news to me, I didn’t even know he was 30. He’s funny, he’s on Little Britain, he’s that bloke that is too lazy to get out of his wheelchair and makes his friend take him up stairs and stuff. See, I watch this stuff. I bet you don’t! And you get invited to his party. Smell the unfairness there! But hey, at least he got my CD case. You should have given him my CD instead. I’m sure it was better than yours anyway. Then again, everyone attending my birthday party got a copy of it as a welcome gift. I know how to spread my word, you see! Or in this case, my work. And I do it well.
I include full quotes below. Insensitive it is. Insensitive. I’m hurt.
George
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1) “‘Well, don’t let me,’ says Rob. He says they’ll just leave it as it is on the demo. ‘I won’t let you down,’ he suddenly says, for no clear reason, ‘I will not give you up. I’ve gotta have some faith in my sound. It’s the one good thing that I’ve got.’ ‘Who’s that?’ asks Guy, his ears perking up at what sounds like a usable lyric. ‘It’s me,’ says Rob. ‘It’s my first single. “Freedom”. (…) Rob rarely mentions his first solo-single, a cover of George Michael’s “Freedom 90″. It has been written out of his history. It appears on none of his albums and will not appear on his greatest hits album. He has never performed it live in concert. It marks the time when he was first a solo artist. So his contract said anyway, and so he told everyone, but in reality he had yet to become one (…) For the video shoot for his first single in Miami, he hadn’t even got around to recording his own version of “Freedom 90″ yet, so he just mimed to George Michael’s record instead.”
2) “He stumbles upon a reference to being voted villain of the year in the NME readers’ poll. Osama Bin Laden has come second. ‘The first time I was really over the moon.’ I note that competition must have been tougher this year, with Osama on the scene. ‘Yeah’, he says, ‘but when there’s talent around like me, when there’s evil around like me, there’s no competition.’ Pause. ‘And he’s made a massive mistake by not releasing a ballad.’ He’s stopped making videos too, I point out. ‘Yeah,’ says Rob. ‘He thinks he’s George Michael or someone.’
3) “In promotion of his new album “Patience”, George Michael gives an interview to the Telegraph magazine, in which he critisises Rob’s record deal. (This is someone, it seems fair to mention here, who told Rob that he was seriously considering the option of not using a traditional record company and doing a deal with one of the big supermarket chains instead.) ‘That Robbie Williams deal ****s every artist, because it says “Okay guys, you’re not making enough money on the records you’re screwing me on, come and take some of my merchandise, come and take my book publishing, take this, take that…” It’s like, you ****er. The point is, he has – and he told me – no, I’m not even going to say what he told me…’ The interviewer encourages him to do so. ‘No, I can’t say. At the end of the day I think it’s a huge betrayal of any sense of community. But then there isn’t a community any more, so I suppose it’s understandable.’
‘Ooooh,’ says Rob when he hears this, in an isn’t-he-tetchy-today? tone. ‘What I make of this is, I must have been a huge torn in his side for a long time. And he hasn’t been able to deal with it. But I’ll bring it up at the next community meeting’.”
4) “One Friday morning he sits at the dinner room and makes a CD for Matt Lucas, whose thirtieth birthday party he will be attending that evening. He cuts out figures from Attitude magazine to customise the CD case and cover. For the rest, he simply uses George Michael’s “Patience” CD case. He titles the compilation ‘Lonely On Top’.”
