Musician Robbie Williams has reveled his reason of the stirred controversy of his unplanned rude gesture about showing his middle finger during the FIFA world cup opening ceremony.
During the opening ceremony, this U.K. pop star gave the middle finger to the camera while performing on the field at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow ahead of the opening game between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
“At these things, it’s really important not to cause an international incident, and do you know what, I managed it,” he said “I was under a lot of pressure because there was one minute left and I didn’t know if I could do it in half a minute, so I just did a one-minute countdown”.
Williams went onto explain that his divisive gesture was meant to signal a “one minute to kick-off” and he didn’t think the camera will flip that time.
“I can’t trust me,” saying the gesture as unplanned he added, “I don’t know what I’m going to do at any time. The plan was to sing in key, don’t fall over. That was the plan and 99 percent of that plan, I pulled off. Nothing actually passes into my head”.
“There’s a block between me and sense, and something happened and five minutes later I’m like, ‘Did I just… yeah I did, didn’t I?!’”
“I can’t imagine what Robbie Williams meant by that gesture,” said Ilya Averbukh, the show’s co-director, “as the choreographer, I didn’t put it in there”.
FIFA and the singer’s public relations team did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The U.S. broadcaster FOX Sports also issued an apology to viewers for showing the gesture.
> Shatabdi Sarker Poushi
Robbie Williams Explains His Rude Gesture during World Cup Ceremony
