Most musicians come to Los Angeles to get famous; Robbie Williams came to escape the British tabloids and his extreme celebrity in the U.K. 

In 2004, Williams was inducted into the U.K. Music Hall of Fame as “the greatest artist of the 1990s.” The singer was playing sold-out shows at massive venues and flying in a private jet. All the while, he had been wrestling with inner turmoil and addiction that dated back to his stratospheric rise to fame after joining the British boy band Take That at age 16. And even though his millions of fans disagreed, every success he achieved had been met with equal mockery by the U.K. press. 

In Robbie Williams, the pop star grants viewers access into his personal life on his own terms for the first time. Through contemporary interviews from his Los Angeles home, where he lives with his wife and four children, interspersed with behind-the-scenes footage from across the past three decades of his career, we finally get a picture of Williams outside of the bombastic pages of tabloid magazines. Directed by Joe Pearlman, the documentary series sees Williams reexamining his time with Take That, his journey to sobriety, the effect of paparazzi on his relationships, and the creative highs and lows he’s experienced throughout his career. Enlightening and uplifting, Robbie Williams shows us what it really means to inhabit the world of a once-in-a-lifetime rock star.

Opening photograph courtesy of Contour Collection by Getty Images.