{"id":290887,"date":"2025-11-30T04:56:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T04:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/290887\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T04:56:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T04:56:06","slug":"robbie-williams-investigates-who-the-hardest-boybands-and-members-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/290887\/","title":{"rendered":"Robbie Williams investigates who the “hardest” boybands and members are"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robbie Williams<\/a>\u00a0has launched a social media investigation to find out\u00a0who the \u201chardest\u201d 1990s boyband members were.<\/p>\n

The former\u00a0Take That<\/a>\u00a0singer took to Instagram on Monday (November 24), calling out to\u00a0all of\u00a0his fellow\u00a0\u201890s boyband veterans to discuss a subject that he felt\u00a0had \u201cnever been discussed enough\u2026or at all\u201d.<\/p>\n

Citing a video in which Scottish comedian\u00a0Limmy\u00a0answered a question about who would win in a fight between Take That and\u00a0their classic rivals\u00a0East 17<\/a>, Robbie asked: \u201cWho\u2019s\u00a0the hardest individual member?\u00a0Who\u2019s\u00a0the most game? Which group is the toughest unit? And if there were a \u2018Ryder Cup\u2019 of Boy Band Fighting \u2013 USA vs Europe \u2013 who wins?\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams began by breaking down the Take That-East 17 odds. \u201cHoward [Donald] is bricks,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI was on Human Growth\u00a0Hormone\u00a0and I still\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0beat Howard in an arm wrestle.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to say Jason Orange would be \u201crelentless, strong and awkward\u201d,\u00a0and pointed out that\u00a0Gary Barlow<\/a>\u00a0was \u201cthe UK\u2019s youngest black belt\u201d,\u00a0while\u00a0describing\u00a0himself as \u201ca lump\u201d.<\/p>\n

Setting out the \u201cfight card\u201d,\u00a0he pitted Donald against East 17\u2019s Tony Mortimer and declared Donald the winner \u201call day\u201d despite Mortimer\u2019s martial arts background, calling his erstwhile bandmate \u201ca panel beater by day, a ballroom dancer by night\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said a tie between Orange and John Hendy was \u201ctough\u201d,\u00a0but Hendy was the winner because he is a \u201croofer\u201d,\u00a0while Orange is \u201cliterally having saunas in health spas\u201d.\u00a0He tipped himself to come out on top against Terry Coldwell and\u00a0a\u00a0\u201cmethodical and patient\u201d\u00a0Barlow to\u00a0beat out\u00a0a \u201cscrappy but emotional\u201d\u00a0Brian Harvey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Overall, he\u00a0summarised\u00a0that Take That take the contest 3-1, although he noted that \u201cE17 would win in a bar fight because they would arrive tooted up\u201d.<\/p>\n

In terms of the Ryder Cup contest, he said\u00a0Blue<\/a>\u2019s Antony Costa, Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe were all game,\u00a0while he\u00a0New\u00a0Kids\u00a0On\u00a0The\u00a0Block<\/a>\u2019s Joey McIntyre was \u201cvery dismissive\u201d about Europe\u2019s chances. \u201cI mean, I get it,\u201d Robbie responded. \u201cFive lads from the mean streets of Boston.\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0seen the films. But lads\u2026 can you do it on a cold,\u00a0rainy night in Stoke?\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on flesh out his USA team, which included McIntyre\u2019s former bandmates Donny Wahlberg and John Knight, as well as\u00a098\u00a0Degrees<\/a>\u2019\u00a0Nick Lachey\u00a0and\u00a0Boyz II Men<\/a>\u2019s Wanya Morris and Michael McCary.\u00a0The European team, he said, would be captained by\u00a0Boyzone<\/a>\u2019s Keith Duffy, with bandmate Shane Lynch as his\u00a0vice captain.\u00a0Five<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0Jason \u2018J\u2019 Brown also made the team.<\/p>\n

Signing off his Instagram post, Robbie concluded: \u201cThis\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0about violence.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0about legacy.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0about\u00a0honour.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0about settling the arguments nobody was having until I started them. History will\u00a0decide.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a follow-up post earlier today (November 29), Robbie adjusted his Team\u00a0Europe line-up, with Duffy and Lynch now joined by\u00a0BBMak\u2019s\u00a0Ste McNally, who he said was \u201ca 3-time World Kickboxing Champion\u201d, as well as\u00a0MN8\u2019s\u00a0G-Man\u00a0and\u00a0Bad Boys\u00a0Inc\u2019s\u00a0Ally Begg, who he said looks \u201clike a man who has seen war and misses it a bit\u201d.<\/p>\n

With that, Williams launched into a long fantasy about a film version of the Transatlantic boyband wars, which he has dubbed\u00a0Boyband: The\u00a0Abusical, and has described as\u00a0\u201cBilly Elliott\u00a0meets\u00a0John Wick\u00a0meets\u00a0Trainspotting\u00a0meets\u00a0The Full Monty.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be set up north, and\u00a0we\u2019d\u00a0never explain why Kevin and AJ from\u00a0Backstreet Boys <\/a>live there. We\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0have to,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the start of a fully-fledged Boyband Cinematic Universe none of us asked for, but all of us clearly needed. If Marvel can have multiverses, then we can absolutely have Boyband: The Abusical. A national treasure in waiting. Up\u00a0north. Unexplained.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory begins here,\u201d he concluded. \u201cWho\u2019s\u00a0with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Several of Robbie\u2019s fellow boyband members responded to his Instagram posts, including Costa, Coldwell,\u00a0Five\u2019s Ritchie\u00a0Neville\u00a0and Another Level\u2019s\u00a0Dane Bowers<\/a>,\u00a0while\u00a0Mortimer wrote: \u201cBack then\u00a0we\u2019d\u00a0need a referee. Today we would need a chiropractor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere,\u00a0Williams recently described Lily Allen\u2019s new album \u2018West End Girl\u2019 as \u201clike\u00a0Black Mirror\u00a0meets Smash Hits\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0while his own new album \u2018BRITPOP<\/a>\u2019 is set to be released in 2026, after being\u00a0delayed to avoid a clash with Taylor Swift<\/a>. He has\u00a0played his smallest-ever show<\/a>\u00a0in London to promote the\u00a0record, and\u00a0recently\u00a0released a video for \u2018Pretty Face\u2019<\/a>,\u00a0in which he travels back in time to play on\u00a0The Word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robbie Williams\u00a0has launched a social media investigation to find out\u00a0who the \u201chardest\u201d 1990s boyband members were. The former\u00a0Take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,1581,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-290887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-pop","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}