There was a time after leaving Take That in the mid-90s that Robbie Williams seemed to follow the Gallagher brothers about, and the singer, it appears, is still doing it in middle age.
Williams will perform at Croke Park on Saturday as part of his Britpop tour, a week after Oasis played their first gigs in Ireland since 2009 at GAA headquarters.
Of course, the Stoke-on-Trent native is beloved in Ireland as well and has performed at Croker before (both solo and with Take That). He's also played at Slane Castle and Lansdowne Road/Aviva Stadium multiple times during his career.
Famous for his hits such as 'Let Me Entertain You', 'Angels', 'Rock DJ' and many more, Williams is estimated to have sold 75m to 80m records worldwide and a film based on his life, Better Man, was released earlier this year.
Infamously, Williams was played by a CGI chimp in the musical, which made just $22.5m at the global box office despite a reported budget of $110m.
At his peak at the turn of the millennium, Williams was among the most popular artists in the world, and although he never broke America, his stardom was such that he agreed an £80m deal for six albums with EMI in 2002.
It was the biggest recording deal in British music history at the time, nearly twice the previous record held by Elton John, and Williams was quoted as saying: "I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams."
Asked outside his manager's office in London if the contract was really worth so much, he quipped: "My mum said it would be really uncouth of me to talk about money ... I'm going back now to count it all."
It's easy to see why EMI agreed to such a contract. Williams' first four albums all sold millions of copies in the UK, and each of them has gone at least 8x platinum. In another echo of Oasis, Williams drew 375,000 fans to Knebworth for three gigs in 2003.
Williams' popularity started to dim in the mid-2000s with the release of Rudebox and its widely derided lead single of the same name. By the turn of the decade, he was ready to reunite with Take That who had enjoyed mega success with their comeback.
Regardless, his success is such that he is worth an estimated $300m, and his property portfolio has been widely reported on.
In 2002, he purchased a Beverly Hills mansion for $5.45m, which he sold for just under $10m 15 years later. He did so, having already spent $32m on a 25,000 sq ft compound with an 11-car garage, an orchard and 22 bathrooms in the same area in 2015. He later sold it to Canadian rapper Drake for $70m.
He now owns a $49.5m mansion in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills. The home covers 19,000 sq ft and sits on two acres, and he bought another house in London with 46 bedrooms for $22m in 2016.
Photo: Robbie Williams performs prior to the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Final match between Chelsea FC and Paris Saint-Germain at MetLife Stadium on July 13, 2025 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Pic: Dustin Satloff - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
