Robbie Williams just confessed that he has “inside Tourette’s” and said he is an “Olympian at masking” it.
He appeared on the podcast, I’m ADHD! No You’re Not, and discussed the neurological condition.
He said: “I’ve just realised that I have Tourette’s, but they don’t come out. I was just walking down the road the other day and I realised that these intrusive thoughts are ‘inside Tourette’s’.”
According to the NHS website, Tourette syndrome causes sudden, repetitive sounds or movements, also known as tics, that are often triggered by multiple factors including stress, excitement or tiredness.
The singer, who kicked off his Britpop tour in May, also opened up about his mental health and his relationship with performing live on the podcast hosted by Welsh comedian Paul Whitehouse and early year’s specialist in neuroscience Dr Mine Conkbayir.
Robbie said: “You would think that a stadium full of people professing their love to you would work, but whatever it is, inside me, cannot hear it. This tour in particular, as a 51-year-old, I’ve approached it differently because I seem to be in the space to approach things differently.
“I have a very complicated relationship with touring and performing live. People say: ‘Oh, you going on tour? You must be really, really excited.’ Not really. I’m terrified,” the Angels hitmaker said.
He continued, “I mask, like I’m an Olympian at masking. I will look full of bravado and look pompous and look smug and do these grand gestures, which have worked for me because they put my face on the poster and people still buy tickets but actually what’s happening is I feel like the opposite of that all the time, most of the time.”
“I said to the wife while I was rehearsing, I said, I’ve got that PTSD stuff about performance, whatever it was in the Take That years and whatever it was subsequently when I got to the top of the mountain and it didn’t fix me. In fact, it made things worse inside me. Whatever all of that stuff was, I still get triggered from it and it still affects me,” Robbie William concluded.