‘Nice old lady’: Robbie Williams' hilarious reaction when he met icon Barbra Streisand for the first time
Singers Robbie Williams and Barbra Streisand were absolute strangers to each other when they first met in Tahiti and it's amusing that neither of them knew why the other was famous. Williams was introduced to Streisand through mutual friends. Williams who failed to recognize the two-timed Oscar winner, however, was soon ditched when Streisand was equally clueless about him. The 'Let Me Entertain You' star had Barbra down as a 'nice old lady' while the 'Funny Girl' actress thought that Robbie was a footballer.
According to The Sun, Williams told Scott Mills and Chris Stark on their final BBC Radio Five Live morning show that he met the 80-year-old musical legend in Tahiti, but didn't immediately recognize the Oscar-winning star. He said: "It was like ‘hi I’m John’ and ‘hi I'm Rob’ and ‘hi I’m Steve’ and ‘Hi, I’m Barbra’. ‘Hello Barbra, I’m pleased to meet you.'" "Nice old lady. Then I sat down next to Barbra. And it was Barbra Streisand. And I was like: ‘Oh, ahh’.” As the group got chatting, 'Angels' star Robbie’s identity then got misinterpreted by New York-born double Oscar winner Barbra. He recalled: “People were talking about Soccer Aid, and she just presumed I played football. And then I was like ‘Oh, no, no, no, I’m a singer. And she was like, ‘That’s nice.'”
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Barbra Streisand is a world-class singer including in the classic 1968 musical 'Funny Girl'. She has won five Oscars, and eight Grammy awards in a glittering career, amassing a fortune of a whopping $400million. While Robbie, who shot to fame in 'Take That' in the nineties before becoming a solo artist, is one of the biggest selling music artists of all time, with hits including 'Angels' and 'Let me Entertain You'.
The star appeared on the show to promote his upcoming album 'XXV', which celebrates a quarter of a century of his solo career. The album features reimagined versions of some of his greatest hits, reinvented and revamped with the aid of an orchestra.
During the interview, Williams also revealed that his first ever holiday away from his parents was as a 17-year-old with 'Take That' bandmate Mark Owen in Tenerife when the group was just on the precipice of international stardom. Williams said, "We were given £500 by our then manager to go away on holiday. That £500 got us a week away and our spending money." Williams added, "I had to share a room with Mark Owen and then, on the final couple of nights, we ended up working in a bar. "We thought it would be a laugh. We actually didn't get paid. We just did it because we fancied doing it and it would be fun." Mills noted that Williams has a history of making up outlandish anecdotes in order to make interviews more interesting, but the star assured him it was a "true story". He said: "Ask Mark Owen. Like Joni Mitchell, Mark Owen never lies."
Robbie's biopic 'Better Man'
Robbie's schedule looks to be getting a lot busier in the near future as his new album 'XXV' is coming out on September 9, while a biopic about his life is currently being filmed in Australia. The biopic, titled 'Better Man', will cover his incredible rise to fame from boy band heart-throb to stadium superstar. Production has begun on the big budget film billed as 'a musical fantasy' - which is being made in Melbourne by Australian filmmaker Michael Gracey who directed the box-office smash 'The Greatest Showman'. British actor Jonno Davies, 29, best known for the Amazon Prime series 'Hunters', will play Robbie as a younger man. Other members of the cast include Australian actors Kate Mulvany (The Great Gatsby), Damon Herriman (Mr InBetween), and filmmaker-actor Anthony Hayes, whose feature film 'Gold' is currently streaming on Stan. In 2006 Robbie made it into the Guinness Book of World Records after he sold 1.6million concert tickets in a single day.