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Robbie Williams Is Sorry He Accused Jimmy Page of Being Mentally Ill During Their Mansion Renovation Feud

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Robbie Williams performs on stage at The BRIT Awards 2017 at The O2 Arena on February 22, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Mike Marsland/Mike Marsland/WireImage)

You can turn your Google Alerts off now: It seems there’s been a détente in the years-long feud between Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and ex-Take That member Robbie Williams. The two filthy-rich British men are neighbors, but have been at each other’s throats since 2013, when Williams moved in next to Page in West London. Williams soon began elaborate renovations on his mansion, with which Page took issue; Page filed a complaint to the city council about it, which was later overruled.

Williams kept building the house, but claimed in a November radio interview that Page had been staking out his house and spying on him, looking for an excuse to derail the project: “Jimmy has been sitting in his car outside our house, four hours at a time. He’s recording the workmen to see if they’re making too much noise. And also, two weeks ago, the builders came in and he was asleep in his garden, waiting.” He then surmised that Page’s behavior seemed like evidence of “a mental illness concentrating.”

In May, Page got his revenge on Williams. Williams’ building company was fined just under 5,000 pounds for “breaching noise regulations,” in part with an apparently loud-as-hell “bespoke drill,” over the 20 months they worked on construction. Now, Williams has also issued an apology for his suggestion that Page was exhibiting signs of “mental illness.” He also took the opportunity to castigate the press for reporting the comments as well as asking them to “remove” all vestiges of them, as if that was possible. Here’s the full statement:

I would like to offer my sincere apologies to Jimmy Page, my neighbour, for my comments made before Christmas about him in relation to my recent building works, in which I likened alleged behaviour on his part to suffering from a mental illness. Jimmy Page has explained to me that certain specific factual assertions which I made were in fact not true and I am happy to accept what Jimmy Page says. I understand why Jimmy Page will have found my comments offensive and I apologise for any hurt that they have caused him and his family as a result. I did not intend my comments – which, so far as I am concerned, were made privately – ever to be published. I regret that the press went on to report them and I hope that the press will now remove them.

Is the fight really over? Does Robbie Williams read newspapers and websites? Our guess on both counts is no, but only time will tell.

[Stereogum]