Robbie Williams has responded to the news that his song “Forbidden Road”, from the recent biopic Better Man, has been disqualified from the Academy Awards.
Better Man is based on Williams’s own life story, and sees the Take That singer depicted as a CGI chimpanzee.
As well as narrating the film and lending his own vocals, Williams, 50, contributed an original song for the film, which was nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes.
It had also featured in the initial shortlist for the corresponding category at the Oscars, but was subsequently disqualified.
A report in Variety suggested that the reason for the disqualification could be the song’s melodic similarities to “I Got a Name,” a song performed by Jim Croce in the 1973 film The Last American Hero.
To be eligible for the Oscars, songs must be “original and written specifically for the motion picture.”
“Forbidden Road” is formally credited to Williams, alongside Freddy Wexler and Sacha Skarbek.
Speaking on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, Williams was asked about the disqualification of the Better Man song.
“Listen, the rules are the rules, and you have to go by them,” he said. “And it would’ve been nice, but as an introvert it’s another party that I don’t have to go to.
“I went through it, I’m on the other side and it’s all good. I’m at the Globes and they’re showing me loads of love,” he continued, before thanking the interviewer for “being annoyed on [his] behalf.”
In a four-star review of Better Man for The Independent, critic Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “If Superman made us believe a man can fly, then Better Man makes us believe a CGI chimp can convincingly convey the agony and ecstasy of pop star Robbie Williams.
“Initially, it reads as little more than a self-deprecating joke – when The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey first spoke to Williams about putting his life up on screen, the latter remarked that he’d always seen himself as a kind of “performing monkey”. But it works. Not despite the gimmick, but because of it.”
Better Man is out in cinemas now.
