Former Take That heartthrob and full-time chaos magnet Robbie Williams has managed to contract scurvy—a disease so vintage, it last trended during the actual Age of Sail. 🏴☠️
Robbie, 51, pop icon and recent movie muse in Better Man, revealed he got hit with this citrus-deficiency catastrophe while trying to lose weight. And by “trying,” we mean he basically ghosted food like it was an ex with bad vibes.
He told the Daily Mirror he was on an appetite-suppressing drug (translation: Hunger? Never heard of her), which led to a catastrophic breakup with Vitamin C—something your body kinda needs unless you’re trying to cosplay as a malnourished pirate.
Even the NHS was like: “Uh… yeah, most people don’t get scurvy unless they’re actively avoiding fruit like it’s haunted.” But Robbie was like, “Hold my kale smoothie—I got this.”
“I stopped eating and wasn’t getting nutrients,” he admitted, casually dropping that he got a disease last seen on the Black Pearl. He even called it what it is: “a 17th-century pirate disease.” Honestly, the man knows how to brand an illness.
But things got heavier than a sack of potatoes at sea. Robbie opened up about body dysmorphia, saying that when people worried he was “too thin,” he heard, “You’re killing it.” Which, yikes… but also painfully relatable if you’ve ever been complimented for looking like you haven’t slept since 2012.
And just when you thought the vibes couldn’t get darker, depression also made a surprise comeback. “It’s been about ten years,” Robbie said. “I thought I was at the other end of the arc… and that I would just walk into this marvelous wonderland.” Spoiler alert: He did not. Depression was apparently waiting there like, “Surprise! Bet you missed me!”
So what have we learned here, friends?
1. Don’t skip your oranges.
2. Weight loss should not involve historically obsolete diseases.
3. Robbie Williams is the only man alive who could make “pirate disease” sound like a tragic pop anthem.
