Fame can be the most corrosive drug of all… just ask Robbie Williams. As he said, boys in boybands always get sick

Thirty-two years ago, I sat in the back of a van with five young lads aged 18-23.

At the time, I was editing The Sun’s Bizarre column, and they were an up-and-coming boyband desperate for their first hit.

So desperate, in fact, that they’d offered to come and pick me up from my office and take me to a nearby photographic studio so I could interview them while they did a promo shoot for their new single.

In the van that day, they were bright, cheeky, curious and enthralled by my job.

Watch Piers' explosive interviews on his Uncensored YouTube channel here

‘Do you know Paul McCartney?’ one of them asked, wide-eyed.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Do you think we’ll ever be as famous as him?” another giggled.

‘Why not?’ I laughed. ‘He started off just like you.’

The interview was engaging, and I liked them.

They performed their new song for me, and I liked that too.

So, I vowed then and there to help them make it by promoting them in my column.

The band was Take That, the lads were Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams.

The single was It Only Takes A Minute Girl, and with my enthusiastic backing, it became the hit which propelled them to pop stardom.

It was the kind of massive success, fame and riches which would have made their eyes pop out with excitement in the back of that van if I’d told them that would come their way so soon.

I thought of that van ride this week when I watched the new BBC documentary ‘Boybands Forever’ and the fall-out that followed its airing.

After the show, Robbie posted a lengthy Instagram message to the band’s old manager Nigel Martin-Smith, chastising him for saying this in the film: 'He's smart, is Robbie, and it's quite clever, you know.. “I did drugs because I was in this band where I couldn't have girlfriends, or I couldn't go out. That evil t**t, Nigel, it's his fault that I'm behaving like a w**ker”.’

Robbie’s response was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read from a celebrity, an extraordinarily heartfelt, emotional, self-aware, respectful but also very pointed retort that shone a vivid light on what it’s really like to achieve overnight pop stardom when you’re a starry-eyed youngster.

He didn’t blame Martin-Smith for his drug abuse, but he did point out that ‘nearly all members of boybands it seems have at some point a mental breakdown’.

"You can’t help but notice a pattern emerge," he wrote. "Boys join a boyband. The band becomes huge. Boys get sick. Some are fortunate through a series of self-examinations and help to overcome their experience.

"Some never quite manage to untangle the mess of the wreckage of the past. I’m not breaking anyone’s anonymity by sharing the side effects of boyband dysphoria that relate to just us lads.

"Howard – Contemplated suicide when the band ended. Mark – Addiction, alcoholism, rehab. Gaz – Bulimia. Me – I think that one is well-documented. Jason – Whatever effect Take That had on him is so painful he can’t even be part of it."

Wow.

As someone who’d been there from the start of their journey, this shocking litany of what it did to them all really stung me.

Robbie reminded Martin-Smith he was just 16 when he joined the band, and 21 when he left.

"Instead of a stern word and a pointed finger an arm around the shoulder and a kind word would have been the best tact," he added. "I hope I have more grace and understanding when and if any of my own 4 children at such a vulnerable age behave in the same manner."

As a father of four myself, including three sons who’ve come through that challenging life-shaping age group, and – thankfully – all come happily and healthily out the other side, this resonated strongly with me.

The truth is that fame can be the most corrosive drug of all because it’s very addictive, but the more you have of it, the more restrictive on your life and freedom it becomes.

For the biggest boybands like Take That, the early flush of excitement is often quickly replaced by anxiety-ridden self-imprisonment in soulless hotel suites, in a different city every night.

The temptation to resort to booze, drugs or other illicit pleasures to escape the constant frenzied attention, loss of privacy, intense media scrutiny, and ferocious work schedule, becomes overwhelming.

As Simon Cowell says in the Boyband series, it’s what they sign up for so they can’t complain.  But it can still be a lonely, stressful, and permanently damaging lifestyle.

We don’t know what really went down with poor Liam Payne in Argentina, but friends say he never got over the demons acquired during his crazy days with One Direction, an experience that Robbie brilliantly described in his Instagram post as ‘the turbulence of pop stardom’s matrix-bending washing machine.’

A few years ago, I bumped into Jason Orange and asked him: ‘If you could go back to the anonymity you enjoyed before Take That, would you take it?’

"I would," he replied unhesitatingly. "Fame corrupts people’s lives."

When we were in that van together, 32 years ago, I should have told them all then to be very careful what they wish for.

A HEARTBREAKING LOSS

I was so sad to hear that actor Timothy West had died.

His 61-year marriage to Fawlty Towers legend Prunella Scales was a wonderful testament to the power of true love despite her lengthy fight with dementia.

When I interviewed him for my Life Stories show back in 2015, Prunella was in the audience for the recording, and I was concerned she might find us discussing her illness distressing. 

‘Sadly, I doubt she will remember any of it the moment it’s over,’ Timothy said. 

During our 2-hour interview, he spoke incredibly honestly and emotionally about her condition which had destroyed her memory.

In the green room afterwards, I asked a very happy and friendly Prunella if she had enjoyed the show.

‘What show?’ she replied. 

The thought of her now on her own, aged 92, without her extraordinarily devoted rock of a husband, is heart-breaking.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

If Donald Trump really is a fascist, the new Hitler, and an existential threat to democracy - as liberals kept saying during the US presidential race – then why have there been no protest marches since he won, and why did President Biden welcome him to the White House to put on a show of chummy camaraderie for the cameras?

It’s almost as if none of them believed what they were saying!

And talking of bullsh*t, Vladimir Putin has once again threatened the West with nuclear weapons for finally, shamefully late, giving Ukraine long-range missiles that can fire into Russia.

Yet every time we’ve crossed one of the dictator’s numerous supposed ‘red lines’, and ignored his dire nuke warnings, he hasn’t used them.

And he’s never going to, because he knows if he did, he’d be instantly vaporised.

SOCK IT TO THEM, JEZZA

I still have a 3-inch scar on my forehead from Jeremy Clarkson’s fist, and he still has a gnarled, bent finger which broke as it hit my granite-like cranium.

But I’m with him all the way with his campaign against Labour’s outrageous ‘tractor tax’ on farmer estate inheritance which will inevitably lead to many farms shutting up shop.

Like the VAT assault on private schools, which is already sending some of them out of business, it smacks of the politics of envy.

Reverse it, Sir Keir.

IT'S A TOSS UP

I was amused to learn there is a sport called knob-throwing in the Dorset village of Cattistock. 

The idea is to hurl them as far as possible, with the current record at 31.9 metres.

Apparently, the bigger the knob the better.

I wonder if Hugh Grant is available for me to throw?