australian television information archive

Roberta Williams on Carl, Kat and the hard times

NOTORIOUS gangland wife Roberta Williams today blasted her portrayal as a foul-mouthed moll on hit show Underbelly - and revealed the "stress" of being on the wrong side of the police.

In a "wide-ranging interview, the missus of jailed drug lord and killer Carl Williams blasted actress Kat Stewart - who plays her in the series - and defended her reputation as a mother of three children.

"We’re great fans of Kath and Kim in our household and look, she’s a bit of a flow off of old Kath from the show and I certainly don’t talk the way she does," she said of Stewart.

"I was angry at first because I hated the way they spoke to the children because I certainly don’t speak to them like that.

"Sometimes, yes, I swear, yell and scream like the police would’ve heard on lots of listening devices in our home but I don’t conduct myself in the manner they’re portraying on the show."

On life as a gangland moll at the height of Melbourne's deadly crime wars, Williams says she was not afraid.

"I’m not that sort," she said.

"I fear more that my children are going to be run over standing on the side of the road than being killed in the, as they call it, the Melbourne gangland war.

"There were a couple of times, I was a little afraid but I couldn’t say personally I was afraid.

"Sometimes when Carl went out, yes, of course like every wife in that situation I was fearful of his life but I can’t say that he or I were afraid at any time, no."

And on living with the past and looking to the future Williams revealed that she has fallen on harder times.

"I’ve been trying to find a rental property at the moment and I can’t find a rental property. (It's) My name, I don’t know whether they think a house full of gangsters coming over or whatever it may be that narrow minded people think in their stupid little worlds.

"Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, I lost my sister in November to cancer which really threw me.

"It’s been an emotional rollercoaster, there aren’t days where I smile and laugh and I guess people don’t see me at night crying about what life was and what’s ahead of me."

April 09, 2008
The Daily Telegraph