Sonny Bill Williams book extract: How the young star’s life unravelled at the Bulldogs

He was the hottest prospect in the game of rugby league when he exploded onto the scene with the Bulldogs but inside Sonny Bill Williams was suffering.

In 2004, I was on top of the world. I had more than any young man could wish for, especially one coming from my background. Right? Wrong. I was just a young man trying to come to grips with who I was, what I wanted to be and how to achieve it.

But where was the book on that? Who did I go to? I didn’t have any authority figure or role model to talk with, to ask for guidance. There was no-one to steer me onto the right path.

You see, in sport, if you excel at it, everyone considers you The Man. You can do no wrong, even when it’s obvious you are doing just that. I’m not saying I was ever a bad person; I never lost the manners taught to me by Mum and by Nan, and it is in my nature to be polite.

I was still shy, hardly said boo to anyone off the field. But I was a slave to my lusts and desires. I made bad choices and didn’t do myself or my family proud.

Sonny Bill Williams in the early days.

Williams shot to fame at an early age. Picture: Tim Hunter.

The fact is, I was struggling with who I was on the inside. On one hand, I was this supposed star, this bigtime sportsman who had it all. Yet inside I had nothing. That’s what I went through in stage one of my rugby league career, aged eighteen to twenty-one.

The plaster kept getting put over the wound, but, as I discovered, you can’t hide from yourself. Injuries and alcohol fuelled some bad behaviour and I made mistakes. I am not going to justify them.

They were my doing.

But having my mum see the headlines when I was caught peeing in an alleyway was not great. And that was the tip of the iceberg.

Inside, I knew I was making bad choices, and when you’re a shy, polite person like I’ve always been, that inner turmoil is a wild storm. But feeling bad is not the same as knowing how to do something about it.

Sonny Bill Williams was a junior superstar making the NSW junior team with Cameron Phelps (left) and Daniel Conn (right) in 2002.

There is no excuse for the drink-driving, for which I deserved the media avalanche. I had stayed at a friend’s place after a night out and was headed home early the next morning, not thinking for a moment I was over the limit. But I was on my P plates and so I shouldn’t hhave had any alcohol in my system at all.

In hindsight, I can see our Bulldogs CEO was managing a situation, but in doing that he ignored what was happening to me. If he really cared about my wellbeing, he wouldn’t have put me in front of a hungry media pack while I was in such a vulnerable state.

Yes, I had been binge drinking, but it was symptomatic of a greater battle that needed to be confronted, and I wasn’t strong enough or confident enough to do that on my own. I didn’t have the words to tell people that I was feeling overwhelmed or depressed, and no-one saw my behaviour as a red flag or something to ask about.

Sonny Bill Williams was an instant superstar when he made his debut in the NRL with the Canterbury Bulldogs.

There was no conversation from anyone about my wellbeing at all. I was told to admit publicly I had a drinking problem and sent on a course for problem drinkers.

The drinking was a symptom of a much bigger issue that was never once addressed and nobody paid any attention to that. I did need help, but a short course like the one I was signed up for wasn’t the medicine I needed for the deep wound I was carrying.

*****

I’m not making excuses; I’m ashamed of the things I did back then and they clash with who I know I am. It might sound strange, but I can’t say I’d change anything if I could because without all the things that I went through I might not have had the knowledge and personal insight to have found the biggest blessing of my life – Islam.

As brother Malcolm X said: “Only from the depths of darkness can one reach the greatest of lights.’ So, despite my shame, I had to hit my personal rock bottom to finally confront the man I saw when I looked in the mirror.

There were other moments when, caught up in the party hard culture after a game, I drank too much, took drugs and let myself down. And then there was an incident in a nightclub in 2007, when I fooled around with a woman in a toilet stall.

Things started to unravel for Williams while playing at the Bulldogs. Picture: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

Both she and I will have to live with that mistake for the rest of our lives. It made headlines around a good part of the world. It was embarrassing, and not just for myself. There’s the woman involved, of course, though she was a single adult woman and so it really was no-one else’s business what she did.

But I had a girlfriend at home who was publicly humiliated as well as suffering the pain of being cheated on. She surely did not deserve to be at the centre of a media storm.

I understood the reason I was struggling. The party culture, the money, the access to drugs and alcohol. I was wrestling with it but I wasn’t saying no. I was selfish and I had no-one to answer to. Like so many young people in today’s society, I had no boundaries and I was struggling to put some up on my own. It was up to me, but I didn’t know what to do about it or how to do that.

Gradually, it became clear to me I had to change everything.

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Once I became a committed Muslim and adopted a totally different lifestyle, the fog started to clear. But believe me, it took quite a while for conversion to happen, for me to reject what felt like an enjoyable lifestyle as a party boy. All humans are resistant to changing their ways.

And temptations are always there so it is easy to slip back.

This was part of the change that saw me leave the Bulldogs. I was starting to learn more about Islam and the Muslim faith, and my friendships with people like Anthony Mundine and Khoder Nasser were being noticed and commented on. I turned up to training one day and the coach said to me, ‘You aren’t turning Muslim, are you?’

I tried to laugh it off, but then comments were made about my friends, and that made me very uncomfortable and angry. No-one had paid attention to my private life before then; no-one cared when I was drinking or partying hard as long as I was doing what they needed on the field and it didn’t make the press.

Tana Umaga played a crucial role in getting Sonny Bill Williams to switch codes. Pictures: Martin Hunter/Getty Images

And even then, it was all about damage control, not about my wellbeing. Yet now, when I was trying to get myself right, suddenly my private life was a concern because of religion.

It all came to a head in 2008. I thought, I’ve got to get out of here. Make a complete break, start afresh somewhere else. I asked Khoder, who had taken over as my manager by then, to look into the possibility of a contract with a Super League club.

That was when Tana Umaga, the first Samoan to captain the All Blacks, called me out of the blue from Toulon in the South of France. ‘Would you like to consider changing codes to rugby union and play with the team I’m coaching here?’ he asked.

*****

A Samoan superstar wanted me to switch codes and play in a foreign country just as I’m heading into a personal crisis and wanting out from the Bulldogs, out from Australia, and an opportunity just to reset everything?

I was wrestling with it all but I couldn’t see how I could stay. I was scared what would happen. As I said, people were starting to talk about the fact that I was keeping company with Muslims, asking why I was hanging out with ‘those kind of people’ – ‘those’ as in Muslims. This just brought out the steel in me and raised my hackles.

Sonny Bill Williams said he was often asked why he was keeping company with Muslims Pictures: Instagram

Like my mum, I will not be told who I can mix with, not by anyone. Choosing my company is my right, as it is yours. If only I could have understood earlier that I needed to change for my own happiness, contentment and to find inner peace rather than blotting out all that need in the noise of partying.

I was well aware my sudden departure from the Bulldogs would not go down well with my teammates and fans. I don’t blame them for being angry. Or for the wider community declaring they hated me. But no-one knew what was going through my mind and why I felt I had no alternative but to run away.

At the time, though, I could hardly make a press statement explaining the dark place I was in and how I could see no way out. I was overwhelmed but didn’t even understand myself why

I had lost my way so badly, so had no idea how to explain it to the media, the faithful Bulldogs fans, the coaches and team support staff.

Sonny Bill Williams in the early days.

And on his way to a premiership with the Sydney Roosters. Picture Gregg Porteous

If I had known how, maybe things would have been different, but I wasn’t able to open up like that. It wasn’t something I was doing lightly; I wrestled with it and knew I wasn’t just disrupting my own life – it was going to impact my teammates, my family and what people thought of me, something that I had always cared a great deal about.

Normally I was so worried about doing the wrong thing or upsetting people that I did nothing and bottled up my feelings. Finally I understood the problem was me and I had to do something to heal myself. Once I decided I would take up Tana Umaga’s offer I was told I needed a Samoan passport.

In later years Sonny Bill Williams also made a name for himself in the boxing ring.

That took some sorting but finally I was at the airport. I couldn’t wait to get on the plane. When we finally boarded, it felt like an eternity before the doors closed. I was praying that we would take off before the police could board and drag me off the plane. I was so relieved when we were finally airborne, but then I just had my thoughts to worry about.

When we landed in Singapore, Khoder called and told his brother Honks, who was travelling with me, that the Bulldogs administration were trying to subpoena me for breach of contract. I found out later I was the only player in Australian rugby league history to have his club take such action against him. The NRL was also looking to take legal action. The media were waiting for me at Changi Airport with a heap of questions.

Sonny Bill Williams also became a superstar in rugby union. Picture: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

Finally, we were on the plane again, but our troubles still weren’t over. Going through immigration at London’s Heathrow, the guy at the counter looked at my passport and asked, ‘What is this?’

‘A Samoan passport, sir.’

I had to get a map and show him where Samoa was.

He told me, ‘You can’t enter France with this passport. You can enter Britain only.’

I had no clue why this would be the case, but I wasn’t up for arguing. I spent two days hiding out in London while the passport problem was sorted. The media were trying to find me, the guy with the subpoena was supposedly looking for me. The manager we signed the contract with was Tana’s guy, so we stayed with him, holed up in the attic of a house in Wimbledon, not daring to go out.

I spent a lot of time thinking, not really talking to anyone.

Every morning I was there, I woke up with a migraine and the thought kept going through my head, Did I do the right thing?

I was so grateful Honks was with me.

Sonny Bill Williams has told his life story in his book You Can’t Stop The Sun From Shining. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

He knew the magnitude of the situation and he also knew how to lighten the mood. I love my brother Honks.

Finally, we were told I had to go to a consulate somewhere near Hyde Park to get a visa. Honks gets a car, drives me to the visa office and I run in while he parks nearby. I got things sorted and then sprinted out with my visa, convinced I was moments away frombeing arrested and sent to jail – for breaching a footy contract! That’s how naive I was back then.

To avoid the media certain to be waiting for me at Toulon, we flew to Biarritz on the western coast of France. There, I went to a local gym in Pau to work out, and someone recognised me. So I rushed back to the hotel, where the manager – a Frenchman – told me and Honks to pack our things because the media were on to us.

Sonny Bill Williams with wife Alana and children Iman, Aisha, Zaid, Essa, as they prepared to leave quarantine in 2020. Picture: Supplied

This was at about 6pm. They put me in the car boot and covered me with blankets. Talk about living like a fugitive in a spy drama.

I found out that because of legal problems with the contract, I couldn’t start playing straight away. The NRL hired lawyers in France, that’s how badly they wanted me back.

Back in Australia, Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson had negotiated a settlement down from the asking price of $1.5 million to $750,000 plus $200,000 legal fees and another €70,000 for the French lawyers.

Sonny Bill Williams is set to release his autobiography.

I didn’t have that kind of money, so Anthony Mundine and some close friends paid it between them. I will never forget their generosity. Half a million each is big bucks to throw at a mate. Now I was in debt big time, and I still didn’t know if I was definitely going to be able to play.

But, on the bright side, I was now free to reinvent myself. It was time to address the problems I had and have a long hard discussion with that man in the mirror. I didn’t know what would happen. All I knew at that moment was things had to change.

Edited extract from Sonny Bill Williams, You Can’t Stop The Sun From Shining, with Alan Duff, published by Hachette Australia, available from October 13, 2021, RRP $49.99