"So he asked the restaurant for some privacy and they obliged."

A diner added: "People nearly choked on their naan bread when it became known that Robbie would pay for everyone’s meal.

"Some cheeky souls even ordered extra helpings and some more booze. We were all desperate to go up and speak to him, but everyone seemed to respect his wishes."

Robbie unveils film contest - Oct 11 2006
Robbie Williams is inviting budding directors to create a short music film for his song The 80s.  The star will help judge the work with Jonathan Ross and filmmaker Lord Puttman.

The 80s features on the 32-year-old singer’s latest album, Rudebox.

The star has asked seven young independent film makers to provide films to complement the album.  The person who wins the competition to make the eighth film receives £7,500, while the film could also be broadcast.

"This is the record I’ve always wanted to make. It’s reignited how I think about what I can do with music myself," said the heartthrob star.  "Rudebox was done in a guerrilla way, no plan of action, it just evolved into what it is naturally.

"That’s what I like about film today and why I wanted to do this project and competition.  Just like in music today you can create a masterpiece out of an iBook and some digital footage, as much as you can in a fancy studio. That’s how The 80s began life itself, in my bedroom in LA with my friend Jerry messing around on my Mac. I’m very excited to see what the film-makers can come up with."

Robbie’s alternative career - Aug 31, 2020
Pop prince Robbie Williams apparently would have landed a job as a holiday camp Bluecoat if he hadn’t hit the big time with his chart-topping hit, Angels.

The cheeky Stoke popstar reminisced about his time as a youngster touring with his cabaret-singing dad around the caravan parks of Great Yarmouth and Tenby. The 32-year-old told The Sun: "Now some people like to pretend that they never went to Blackpool on holiday, or spent a week in their caravan in Great Yarmouth.

"I did! I’m a Bluecoat. "I’d be an entertainment manager in Caenarvon Bay, if I hadn’t written Angels."

The working-class lad, whose new album Rudebox is out September 4, is not ashamed of his roots and pokes fun at the middle-class frontman of Radiohead.He laughs: "We didn’t all come out of the womb and put a parka on and say, ’Listen I’m 18 months old , but what I really want to do is ride a scooter’.

"We didn’t all do that. We all went on holiday to holiday camps. That’s where I come from. I’m not Thom Yorke. "Don’t know where he went on holiday, he probably went to museums or burlesque theatre or something. "But I went to Tenby!"

Robbie accused of stealing a song - Aug 24, 2020
Robbie Williams has been accused of stealing a song by Rod Stewart’s stepson Ashley Hamilton. Ashley - whose mother Alana was Rod’s first wife - says he worked with Robbie on new single ’She’s Madonna’ before the ’Angels’ singer asked the Pet Shop Boys to finish the track.