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And Finally Artist News
Quitting Take That cost me £1.5 million, claims Robbie
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 12 November 2013
Robbie Williams was left £500,000 in debt after he quit Take That in 1995, the singer has told Radio Four show ‘Mastertapes’. Breaking his contract, he said, cost him £1.5 million, more than wiping out all the money he had made as a member of the group.
Williams said: “For reasons I can’t go into because certain people like suing me – and they like winning – there was a big need for me to get out of my contract and out of that record company. I think I made a million or something in Take That and then it cost me a million and a half to get out of the deal. So as a 20-year-old I ended up coming out of Take That owing £500,000”.
On how he came to leave, he explained: “At the time I was drinking really heavily. I’d said to the boys, ‘This will be my last tour’. We went for a curry the night before everything happened. We were taking a competition winner out for dinner, it mustn’t have been a very nice evening for them! And I went back to the hotel and got drunk again, got up the next day, went into rehearsals and I wasn’t in a very good way”.
He continued: “During the afternoon, Jason Orange said, ‘Bob, we need to sit you down and have a chat. So you’re going to leave after this tour and what we’ve decided is, we think it’s best you go now, so we can prove we can do this as a four-piece. What do you think?’ That was the opening of the door. That’s all I needed. They watched me walk away”.
Listen to the full interview, looking at the recording of Robbie’s debut solo album ‘Life Thru A Lens’, via the BBC iPlayer.
