‘I’m f**ked’: Exhausted Robbie Williams stops mid-concert

The music star was about to launch into his fourth song at a festival over the weekend when he suddenly stopped, appearing out of breath.

Singer Robbie Williams had to pause his show only a few songs in to a recent concert, explaining to the crowd that he was exhausted due to “long Covid”.

Former Take That singer Williams, 49, was performing at the Pinkpop music festival in the Netherlands over the weekend when he asked his band to stop the next song.

Williams had just performed his third song of the night, an energetic cover of the Wilson Pickett classic Land of 1000 Dances, and appeared out of breath as his band launched into his next track, his own 2002 song Monsoon.

Robbie takes a breather.

“I’m f**ked.”

“No, stop stop,” he announced. “I’m f**ked. I’m f**ked. It’s long Covid, I’ve got long Covid. It’s not my f**king age, you f**kers.”

Williams then picked the song back up and continued the set, performing a further 16 songs including hits like Rock DJ, Kids and Angels.

Williams has had two publicly reported bouts of Covid – the first in April 2020, when he was home in Los Angeles.

At the time, Williams said he was feeling “lethargic, tired and heavy” as he spent three weeks isolating in an Airbnb away from his family home to keep his wife and children safe.

“The mental struggle has been the hardest bit about isolation, making sure we don’t slip into our own dark holes,” he told fans at the time.

On stage in Denmark on June 10. Picture: AFP

Later on in 2020, he revealed that he had momentarily moved to the Swiss mountains in the hopes of avoiding the virus.

He told the BBC: “I’m somewhere in Switzerland up a mountain. I’m a bit neurotic and I thought, ‘Where can I place myself where it won’t get me?’ That’s social distancing in the extreme isn’t it?”

But his second bout of Covid came in January 2021, while he was on holiday in the Caribbean island of St Barts with wife Ayda and their four children.

Williams contracted Covid during the trip and was confined to their $186,000-a-week villa before flying home.

Williams and wife Ayda.

A source told The Sun: “Robbie’s been fairly sick. He’s confined to the villa where he is staying with his family. It’s not exactly the worst place in the world to be quarantined, although he cannot go to the beach. He will have to remain in quarantine for up to 14 days.”

Williams later told the Daily Star: “All is good. I’m fine. I’m good. I was good and I will be good.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines long Covid as a “condition that occurs in individuals with a history of probable or confirmed SARS CoV-2 infection, usually three months from the onset of Covid-19 with symptoms and that last for at least two months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis”.

Common symptoms can include “fatigue, shortness of breath, cognitive dysfunction but also others and generally have an impact on everyday functioning”.

Originally published as ‘I’m f**ked’: Exhausted Robbie Williams stops mid-concert