Robbie Williams is "more cocky" on stage when he is most "terrified".
Robbie Williams
The 43-year-old musician has admitted his confident and "arrogant" persona is just a façade for when he feels petrified prior to performing on stage in front of a large crowd of people.
Speaking about his personality to The Sunday Times magazine, the dark-haired heartthrob said: "I'm a show person. The more cocky and arrogant I look onstage, the more terrified I am."
Although the 'Angels' hitmaker considers himself to be a "chronic people-pleaser", he has admitted that deep down he feels "socially awkward" and uncomfortable when he has to take pictures with his fans and sign autographs.
He explained: "I am a chronic people-pleaser, which leads to a sort of exasperation with everybody wanting a picture and me wanting to protect myself from having to do that all the time. I hate saying no because I don't want them to think I'm an awful person. And I don't like saying yes, because I'm socially awkward and every single moment I have meeting a stranger feels like trauma to me.
"I fill a space with something -- and that space is like everybody's Facebook page, a snapshot of the best bits of their lives. That's what I try to project."
But Robbie - who has four-year-old daughter Theodora and two-year-old son Charlton with his wife Ayda Field - has admitted he has "pulled the wool" of everyone's eyes for a "long time" and lead people to believe in his "s**t", which was "not real".
He continued: "For a long time, I pulled the wool over my -- and everybody else's -- eyes into believing I was the s**t. I thought I was Zeus. But it's not real."
Meanwhile, Robbie is currently in the middle of his 'The Heavy Entertainment Show' tour, and he has not left his room the entire time, except to perform, because of his anxiety and fear he cannot escape if he needed to.
He explained: "I am agoraphobic. I haven't left my room on the whole tour. I watch a lot of podcasts on YouTube. There's a guy called the True Geordie, who I've been consumed with. Before that it was George Galloway, the politician, and Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and Russell Brand. I spent a long time contemplating atheism and religion -- not that I've come up with anything."
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