Robbie Williams Says He Won't Sue Olivia Rodrigo Over 'Candy' Comparisons
Robbie Williams has said he will not sue Olivia Rodrigo, after fans compared her new holiday song to his 2012 hit "Candy."
Rodrigo released "Take Me Home (4 Christmas)" on 5 November. Within days, listeners started pointing out that it sounded like "Candy," the single Williams put out in 2012. On Monday, 9 November, Williams posted on Instagram to defend the younger singer. He called her "f—king brilliant" and made clear he had no plans to take legal action.
"I'm not going after her," he said, adding that "some sanity has to prevail." He said he "couldn't care less" if Rodrigo had "accidentally stumbled across a musical echo" of his own work. Williams also said that a melody can resemble another without anyone copying it, because "there are only so many notes," and artists "all stand on the shoulders of people who came before us."
He was blunt about lawsuits over songs that sound vaguely alike. He described them as "disgusting" and "complete bollocks," a British slang phrase meaning nonsense. In a separate report, Williams said he had received an odd email about two months earlier from someone claiming to be "Olivia." He assumed at first that it was a fake. LADbible reported those remarks on 7 November, before Williams's Instagram post.
The dispute comes at a busy time for Williams. His official website lists his album BRITPOP as out now. It includes "ROCKET," "SPIES," "PRETTY FACE," and the single "ALL MY LIFE." The site also promotes the BRITPOP World Tour across Australia and New Zealand in November 2026, with a concert in Christchurch, New Zealand, listed for 28 November.
Further ahead, the site shows a July 3 show at Lytham Festival in Lancashire, England, marked as sold out. It also lists two dates at Thomond Park Stadium in Limerick, Ireland, on 6 and 7 July, with the 6 July show marked sold out.
Songwriting disputes like this one are common in pop, where short melodic phrases get reused across decades. Copyright law generally protects a specific recording or composition rather than a general sound, which is one reason many such disagreements are settled without court action. Williams has not filed any claim, and Rodrigo has not publicly responded to the comparison.
For now, the story is a famous singer telling fans to relax. Williams's message was that borrowing a few notes is part of how pop music has always worked, and that he would rather be part of that tradition than fight it.
