Gary Barlow has said the days he was in a so-called rivalry with Robbie Williams are “over”.
During an appearance on Monday’s Lorraine, Gary opened up about his relationship with former Take That bandmate Robbie, his past struggles and his new book A Better Me.
Gary, 47, admitted he believes he and Robbie are “in the best place we’ve ever been” and they talk and email “a lot”.
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Speaking about his so-called rivalry with Robbie during an interview with Ross King, Gary quipped: “We’d both say it’s not a rivalry, but you know it is. I’m completely fine as long as I sell one more copy of my new album…
“I mean, no, honestly we’re probably in the best place we’ve ever been. We talk a lot. We email a lot. I think those days are over, I really do.”
He went on to discuss Robbie’s new role as an X Factor judge, adding: “I’m surprised he’s waited so long to be honest. Rob’s great telly, he just is. He’s great to sit in a room with, he’s just Rob.
“He’s the centre of the room wherever he goes. I think it’s a genius idea taking Ayda [Field, his wife] with him. I know what Rob’s like, he doesn’t really like new environments.”
Gary praised Ayda and recalled the first moment he ever met her.
He added: “I remember the first time I met her, I remember coming home to the hotel and phoning everyone up and saying, ‘Rob’s going to be alright, I’ve just met his fiancée, she’s going to look after him, she’s going to save his life.'”
Gary also opened up about his weight issues, revealing he realised he needed to make a change to his lifestyle after reaching 17 stone.
Speaking about his weight, he said: “It’s something that haunted me for years – the eating. I think it’s always nice to hear someone else, it’s not just me.
“2003 – it was the day when I just went, ‘No, I’m not having this anymore, I’m going to change. I want to change and I’m determined that this is not who I’ve become.
“It only took a few years to get that low, but it took me years to get back to who I wanted to be. 10 years probably. The fight back up is much harder than the one going down.”
Gary added: “Nine years [I stopped singing]. Just turned my back on it. I was trying to kill off the popstar, that’s what I was doing. I was eating away what a popstar looked like. I was just killing him off.
“But not singing, that was another nail in the coffin. I liked doing it, I liked getting rid. Stopped dying the hair, stopped buying nice clothes, just wanted to look the opposite, physically and mentally.”
He admitted: “In some ways it sort of needed to happen. I had that ridiculous 90s period where the ego was just getting bigger and you just think, ‘There’s only one way back from this and it was down.’”
Speaking of his ego, he said: “It was completely out of control. I was the only one at that point who was actually writing songs. I love to write music, I just felt the pressure of it on my shoulders.
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“When you’ve been big, the only other thing you can be is really not big… is to sort of lose everything. Simply because it was a really humiliating thing that happened. I’d been in this band, it all ends, you get dropped, one of your band members goes on to be stratospheric, you’re just the loser.
“There’s like a big ‘L’ wherever you look, all over your body, you’re just a loser. I just didn’t want to be me. I just hated myself at that point.”
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