Robbie Williams reveals shock detail nobody's seen in iconic 90s photo

In the summer of 1990, 16-year-old was struggling through his GCSEs when his life changed forever. Selected as a recruit in , he joined , Howard Donald, Jason Orange and , with manager Nigel Martin-Smith believing they could be the British answer to New Kids on the Block.

Robbie was the youngest, once calling himself the “runt of the litter”, while Mark had worked in a bank, , Jason was a decorator and Gary had been performing in clubs for years. “As with many boybands, they all had their individual roles,” says music correspondent Mark Savage. “Gary was the songwriter, Mark was the heartthrob, Jason and Howard were the dancers and Robbie was the comedian. From the beginning, audiences loved his gregarious quick wit.”

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Despite a record deal with RCA, hopes of instant success were dashed when debut single Do What U Like limped to No82 in July 1991,
and even its raunchy video, featuring the lads wrestling half-naked with jelly, failed to have the desired effect. Follow-ups Promises and Once You’ve Tasted Love also peaked at a lowly No38 and No47 respectively.

“They didn’t really know what they were doing or who they were for,” recalls music writer Michael Cragg. “It was a bit confused at first and, ultimately, the songs weren’t good enough. It took a while for them to find a happy medium between the more upbeat stuff and ballads.”

Robbie felt out of his depth from the start, and in Boybands Forever, he admitted, “I wanted to leave.” However, a breakthrough came in the summer of 1992, when the band’s cover of It Only Takes A Minute reached No7. Subsequent singles I Found Heaven, A Million Love Songs and Could It Be Magic were also hits, and their debut album Take That And Party made it to No2 and remained in the charts for 18 months.

From then on, there was no stopping the juggernaut, and second album Everything Changes, released in October 1993, sold three million copies globally and spawned six hit singles. Four of them were consecutive UK No1s – Pray, Relight My Fire, Babe and the title track.

By now, mass hysteria surrounded their every move and Robbie said at the time, “It’s been brilliant – girls following us everywhere.” But under the surface things were far from rosy, and he was finding the group’s high-energy dance routines hard to master. “I would have trouble picking up the steps which would make me look like I was being lazy,” he said in Boybands Forever.

“It made me feel like my place within the band was never safe.” He also told how , and as Michael says, “It was a he didn’t know. After feeling like a failure at school, he was now being told he was failing in the band and that he could be replaced at any time. In that situation you’re eventually going to rebel.”

Riddled with insecurities, Robbie turned to drink and drugs as a coping strategy, sparking concerns among his bandmates and their management. “Alcohol and drugs gave him a confidence he didn’t otherwise have,” says the BBC’s Mark. “But being in the spotlight is hard enough to navigate as an adult, never mind as a teenager.”

He persevered, and May 1995’s album Nobody Else resulted in some of Take That’s biggest hits, including Never Forget, which shot to No1 in more than 30 countries. However, Back For Good ’s line, “In the twist of separation, you excelled at being free”, proved prophetic, as – just weeks after partying at Glastonbury with Oasis.

Calling his time in Take That a “tremendous gift” that “turned into a nightmare”, he later explained his decision to quit to DJ Scott Mills, saying, “I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown. My first of many.” Describing the situation as a “computer overload”, he stressed, “I was new to the phenomenon of extreme fame.”

Fans were heartbroken by Robbie’s departure, and it threw Take That’s future into disarray. Speaking on Nicky Byrne’s podcast last October, Gary recalled, “It left us four with not just a bit of what we had, but nothing… Record label dropped, no publishing, nothing.” With the band at crisis point, Mark Savage tells us, “There’s a magic and a chemistry in bands like Take That, but when you remove one element, it’s like a house of cards and it can all fall apart. After Robbie left, something was missing. The band knew it, and fans did too.”

Yet shockwaves still erupted when they confirmed in a press conference a few months later that they were splitting. “Unfortunately the rumours are true,” “From today Take That is no more.” The news caused such distress that the Samaritans set up a helpline, and some fans even went on hunger strike.

The four spent the next few years pursuing solo ventures, but in 2005 they announced that they were reuniting. Singles like Patience, Shine and Greatest Day were monster hits, and in 2009 Robbie realised he wanted back in. He recorded the album Progress with them, saying, “I wanted to vanquish the demons of the past, and I wanted to make it better for them and for me.”

Amazingly, it became the second fastest-selling album in British history, with hit singles including The Flood and Kidz , and was accompanied by the sellout Progress Live tour in 2011. “A lot of people didn’t think it could happen, but it was something Robbie clearly wanted to do,” says author Michael. “It wasn’t like he needed the money, but it obviously felt right.”

Soon after the tour, Robbie left for a second time – although this time Gary insisted “it ended perfectly”, and that he would be “welcome back any time”. After Jason quit in 2014, Take That continued as a trio, and Robbie joined them in May 2020 for an online lockdown performance. Today, his relationship with his former bandmates is “loving and jovial”, and the script of his Better Man film was apparently altered after Gary was granted personal approval.

The Boybands Forever series also showed that harmony now reigns, with Robbie calling Gary “an incredibly dependable person” and adding, “I’ve just got overwhelming amounts of admiration for the man.” We’re so glad the bromance is alive and well.

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