What Better Man got wrong or missed out from Robbie Williams' life

Better Man dramatises the life and career of Robbie Williams, depicting the musician as a CGI monkey in order to convey his feeling of being a performing monkey in real-life.

While the decision to portray the singer as a monkey is the most surprising, out-there thing about the film it tells Williams' story with authenticity from his childhood to his stratospheric rise to fame. While there are a lot of truths to the musical biopic, there are some aspects of Williams' life and career that were altered or completely fabricated for dramatic effect.

Here is everything you need to know about what Better Man got wrong, or missed out, but be warned this article contains some spoilers for the movie.

Robbie Williams didn't meet Nicole Appleton on a boat

In the movie, Williams looks back at his whirlwind romance with All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, but their meeting is not how the pair met in real life.

Better Man sees Williams feeling downtrodden after the break-up of Take That while ringing in the New Year at a boat party. During the party the singer meets Appleton, who doesn't know who he is at first and feels like a breath of fresh air after years of fans pining after him. The scene takes a dream-like hue when Williams and Appleton perform a moving dance together as he sings She's the One, with the sequence sharing a montage of the ups and downs of their relationship.

The pair actually met when they both performed on Top of the Pops in 1997. Netflix's 2023 documentary about the singer showed footage of him swapping the labels of his dressing room with All Saints in order to play a prank on them.

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Williams and Appleton had a whirlwind romance, getting engaged just months into their relationship before breaking up shortly thereafter. They then had an on-again-off-again romance until they finally split in 1999.

Robbie Williams didn't sing My Way with his dad at the Royal Albert Hall

Better Man ends on a moving moment where Williams, who has been seeking his father's love and approval for the whole film, pays tribute to his parents and asks him to come up on stage to sing a duet to My Way. The musician did perform the concert at the Royal Albert Hall and sang the Frank Sinatra track, but unlike in the movie he sung it alone.

In reality, Williams didn't even use the moment to pay tribute to his family as at the time he thanked all the people who worked on his most recent album, including Sinatra, and then performed the track.

While his dad might have been in the audience the singer did not reference him, and in fact at the end of the song the musician actually gave a shout out to his mum and said: "Mum, this is your son singing. I love you."

The film's timeline is wrong

On this note, the film ends with Williams having his concert at the Royal Albert Hall, suggesting that he played at Knebworth beforehand — but the timeline is incorrect because Williams' Royal Albert Hall concert took place in 2001 and he played Knebworth in 2003.

The depiction of Knebworth is fairly accurate to what happened with Williams onstage at the time, from his exciting entrance where he hanged upside down to telling the crowd that their "a** is mine". However, the sequence descends into a dramatic dream-like state in which the singer fights different versions of himself, his inner saboteurs if you will, as his mental health struggle comes to a head. Safe to say, this was dramatised for the movie to bring across what he faced personally at the height of his fame.

Robbie Williams continued to have a prolific career after 2003

Better Man might end the singer's story in 2003 but the musician continued to have a strong career, for example in 2009 Williams entered the Guinness Book of World Records for selling 1.6 million tickets in one day for his Close Encounters tour.

The singer continued to make solo music, but in 2010 he surprised fans by reuniting with Take That for the first time since 1995. The quintet released a new album together and went on tour.

Other highlights of Williams' life and career include his marriage to Ayda Field, with whom he appeared on the judging panel of X Factor in 2018, and performances at big events like Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and the FIFA opening ceremony in 2018.

Better Man is out in cinemas now.