Russian media outlets have shamed the video for the ‘Let Me Entertain You’ singer’s new single as ‘racist’ and even threatened he will ‘never’ be able to perform in the country again.

The song, the first from his new album Heavy Entertainment Show, features a sample from Prokofiev’s Dance Of The Knights, along with lyrics about a ruler who “alleviates the cash from a whole entire nation” to “build my own space station”. The video sees Williams, 42, sing about being a “modern Rasputin” while backing dancers dressed as maids and ballerinas twirl around him. He also attempts a fake Russian accent.

Robbie has recently said to the BBC that he had actually toned down both the song and its video to avoid causing offence. He had also said to the Sun that worked hard on the lyrics for fear of offending fans. “There’s 147 million people in Russia and I don’t want to upset them in any way and I don’t know what kind of sense of humour they’ve got.”

After the video was released, people took to Twitter to criticise and question Williams. One user, @martinquibell wrote: “Just heard the new Robbie Williams song Russian where he tries the accent… Isn’t that racist?” Another, @Liv_g_c wrote: “Really good to see the degrading stereotyping of Russian women being spread by Robbie Williams’ new track’s video.”

Not all Russians responded negatively to the song, however. Journalist Maria Baronova, described Robbie as “courageous” in a Facebook post, and described his rhyming of “Rasputin” with “Louboutin” as “generally brilliant”.

Heavy Entertainment Show is Robbie’s 11th studio album as a solo artist since leaving boyband Take That in 1995. He has sold more than 75 million records worldwide and scored seven number one singles in the UK.