Robbie Williams' Oscar dream shattered after song is disqualified

Academy Awards team rule tune from the Take That star's upcoming biopic Better Man is too similar to a previous nominee

Robbie Williams’ dream of bagging an Oscar has Come Undone after his song was disqualified for sounding too much like another tune.

Forbidden Road, from his biopic Better Man, was shortlisted earlier this week for Best Original Song. But Academy Award bosses have since ruled it out of contention. They say it sounds too similar to I Got a Name from 1973 film, The Last American Hero. A letter sent out to voters in the music category said Robbie’s track “incorporates material from an existing song that was not written for the film” so it has been deemed ineligible for the Oscar, US site Variety reports.

The decision will come as a bitter blow to the former Take That star, who has been on a global tour to promote Better Man.

The biopic, which will be released in cinemas on Boxing Day, explores Stoke-born Robbie’s life from childhood until 2003 – the year he broke records by playing three huge gigs at Knebworth to annoy Oasis, who only did two. Director Michael Gracey, who also made The Greatest Show­man, said a CGI chimp depicts Robbie in the film because he always “felt like a performing monkey”. It doesn’t shy away from the singer’s dark days either, depicting the drug use and mental health battle that almost killed him.

Robbie says his daughter Teddy, 12, “sneaked in” to a screening of the biopic – but it hasn’t put her off going into showbiz. He said: “She’s the child that wants to be famous the most – way more than I did. It’s terrifying. I tried to explain to her, ‘It doesn’t fix you’. But she won’t listen to me, of course. After the film, she was like, ‘Daddy, can I walk around the garden with you?’ And she held my hand and said, ‘I get it’.”

Robbie, who had hits with songs such as Angels, Come Undone and Rock DJ, also has son Charlie, 10, daughter Coco, six, and four-year-old son Beau with wife Ayda Field.

Robbie can console himself with a chance at winning a Golden Globe for the song on January 5. Earlier this week at the Golden Globes First Time Nominees luncheon, he couldn't contain his excitement. He described being nominated for a Globe as “very exciting." He continued: "I feel like a brand new artist experiencing new experiences in a brand new arm of the entertainment industry .”

Robbie said he was expecting to be starstruck at the awards. “I am as excited as anybody else at meeting famous people," he said. “Honestly, on the evening, there'll be an 11-year-old inside me going, ‘oh, guess what? Look who is over there?’

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