Just call me Rob

TAKE THAT... STAR ‘DUMPS’ ROBBIE

WAVE goodbye to Robbie and from now on say hello to Rob Williams.

After 30 chummy years, Stoke’s most famous son wants to ditch Robbie and go back to his childhood moniker – Rob. The Angels star, christened Robert, revealed: “When I joined Take That the manager said, ‘Your name’s not Rob any more, it’s Robbie’. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to be called Robbie? I hate that’, but I was terrified of our manager at the time.

“Robert Williams isn’t as showbizzy as Robbie Williams.”

Yet it sounds perfect for that album of choral classics he was planning.

Most of his nearest and dearest have ditched Robbie anyway.

He added: “There’s a separation for me, and now most people call me Rob.”

So now might be a good time for Robert to finally tell his folks that he failed his GCSEs. The star’s dodgy results came the same day he got the Take That gig.

He laughed: “I said to my mum, ‘I’ve got some news’, and she said, ‘Me too, you’re in Take That, you’ve got it!’

“She never asked me what my news was, or what my qualifications were.”

Rob blames celebrity on his well-documented mental health issues: “Tell me a person at that level of fame who hasn’t gone crazy, who hasn’t gone mad?”

Maybe Robert Williams will be a happier man.