Netflix has it’s finger on the pulse when it comes to bringing the true stories behind entertainment’s biggest names to the screen, and the recently released Take That is no different.
In the three-part docuseries about the UK pop group, fans are treated to never-before-seen footage of its five members – Gary Barlow, Robbie Williams, Howard Donald, Mark Owen and Jason Orange – as well as recollections from their days as an on-off boy band from 1990 until now.
In the UK, they’ve had an astonishing 12 No. 1 singles, with ‘Back for Good’ also hitting the top spot here in Australia in 1995.
Yet, while they were killing it in the charts, they were being killed softly behind closed doors.
Williams’ struggles with booze and drugs have been widely publicised. Owen’s with alcohol, too.
But in the series, fans discovered that Barlow also hit rock bottom after Take That split in early 1996 and his solo career ground to a halt a few years later.
The ‘excruciating’ reason for Gary Barlow’s health struggles
Compounding Barlow’s pain was Williams’ rise to superstardom with his single ‘Angels’. “It was just so excruciating. You just wanted to crawl into a hole,” Barlow explained in the show. “There was a period of about 13 months when I didn’t leave the house once. And I also started to put weight on. And the more weight I put on, the less people would recognise me.”
He even made a secret deal with himself. “I went on this mission then, if the food passed me, I would just eat it. And I’d killed the pop star,” he shared.
At first, he thought being unrecognisable was his ticket to a normal life at his home in Cheshire, until he was mocked by comedians David Walliams and Matt Lucas as they presented Williams with a BRIT Award for ‘Angels’.
“I saw it all and watched it all,” Barlow admitted.
The result? An eating disorder, specifically bulimia.
Gary Barlow had an unkind nickname for Robbie Williams
While Barlow might come across as the victim in the docuseries, at times he was the aggressor – primarily to Williams.
“I called him Blobby, instead of Robbie,” Barlow recalled, clearly mortified at his wince-worthy jibe about Williams’ weight.
According to Barlow, the singer even confronted him about it decades on, during their reconciliation chat.
Barlow and Williams’ beef was up there with that of Simon and Garfunkel, or Oasis’ Gallagher brothers.
“My problem always was with Gary; I wanted to crush him,” Williams said in unearthed footage. “I wanted to crush the memory of the band and I didn’t let go. Even when he was down, I didn’t let go.”
Incredibly, more than a decade after the band’s break-up, the warring singers quickly sorted out their drama before their 2010 reunion album release.
“In about 25 minutes, we’d put to bed things that had haunted us for years, and it felt like we could move forwards after that,” Barlow recalled.
Barlow even has hopes that Williams will rejoin him, Donald, Orange and Owen in the studio and on stage.
“At some point it’s going to happen,” he teased to The Sun. “And that’s one of the wonderful things about our band – you never know what’s around the corner.”
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