Robbie Williams reveals he sang about having sex with Paula Yates, but admits he “didn’t really do it”

Robbie Williams has revealed that his song Cursed is about having sex with his late friend Paula Yates while speaking in the upcoming Channel 4 documentary about her life.

The 49-year-old singer He admitted that while he didn’t “actually” sleep with the TV host, he did have a “massive crush” on her, in the new candid interview.

The life of journalist Paula, who died of an accidental heroin overdose in 2000 at the age of 41, is the subject of the new two-part documentary.

Featuring previously unheard interviews with her, recorded in 1998 and 1999, the TV show also contains testimonials from her close friends, including Robbie.

Speaking in the film, the former Take That star admits to his lyric: ‘I told y’all I slept with you. I thought you’d like it and you wouldn’t deny it’ is a reference to Paula.

Robbie remembers the first time he met Paula when she interviewed his band and confessed: “I was thinking: ‘Don’t you fancy Jason [Orange]!”

In an interview with The timesThe documentary’s director, Charlie Russell, added: “She was a huge influence on him. He had a crush on her, but it quickly turned into a real friendship.

He saw similarities in them. She felt that she was lucky, that the only difference was how she ended up.

Robbie previously described Cursed on the album’s insert, Escapology, as: ‘A tribute to a friend of mine who passed away. “Saint Peter is going to be unfaithful/tell God he has a dirty angel” – is very sexy.

“I’ve tried to make it as rock and roll as I could to fit in with them, and still be loving. I am sorry for your loss.

Paula had a habit of leaving pop stars speechless with her devastating sex appeal and was the quintessential television icon of the 1980s.

On the music show The Tube, her co-host Jools Holland was reduced to playing the horrified straight man while she amusedly created lawlessness. She even persuaded Sting to take his pants off on air in 1985.

Later, on The Big Breakfast, he conducted interviews with stars on a bed in the studio.

One of them, INXS singer Michael Hutchence, whom she fell head over heels for, their affair ending her marriage to Live Aid hero Bob Geldof and Hutchence’s affair with supermodel Helena Christensen.

Drugs, scandals and lawsuits followed, and after Hutchence was found dead in a hotel room, a grief-stricken Paula committed suicide with a ‘reckless’ heroin overdose. Her four-year-old daughter was alone with her. Paula was only 41 years old.

Her story is about to be retold on Channel 4 in a landmark two-part documentary, titled Paula.

It will feature previously unaired interviews with Paula about her life, given in 1998 and 1999, just before her death in 2000.

Executive Shaminder Nahal, called Paula: “A whirlwind of wit, verve and charisma,” adding: “Looking at what she’s accomplished now, it seems like no one has matched her as a TV presenter.”

Born in 1959 in Colwyn Bay, Conwy, she was raised by a father she feared and a mother she feared she would lose. Her mother was Elaine Smith, a statuesque showgirl who called herself Heller Toren and she had a 44-inch bust and a genius IQ of 160.

His father was Jess ‘The Bishop’ Yates, an avuncular showbiz veteran who hosted ITV’s religious program Stars On Sunday.

The marriage was not a success, but Jess refused to give his wife a divorce. They separated, with Jess moving to Leeds, where Stars on Sunday was filmed, and Heller moving to London, where she wrote gripping novels and had lovers, including singer Tom Jones.

In 1974, Jess lost her job after a scandal involving a 16-year-old lover.

In his autobiography, Yates painted a haunting picture of his childhood. She said that her mother left her repeatedly. “I used to go to bed not knowing if she’d still be there in the morning…I’d lie outside the bathroom if she went to the bathroom.”

When Heller left, she was left in the care of her manic-depressive father, who would lock her in an orange box and practice the organ for hours.

She said her disturbed upbringing left her unable to speak properly at four, not potty-trained until five, anorexic at eight, had intimate sex with an Argentine boy and dabbled in heroin at age 12.

Her mother, from whom she was estranged, denounced the story as a pack of lies. For one thing, she said that Jess Yates didn’t have an organ in her house, and that young Paula was never locked in an orange box.

Instead, Heller claimed that Paula had always been adored, even spoiled, by her doting parents. “Fiction is always more interesting than the truth,” she said.

However, one thing they both agreed on was that Paula Yates was very smart and precocious.

By the time she was 14, she was a regular on the London club scene and in 1976, at 18, she set her sights on Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof, eight years her senior.