Take that, indeed! Robbie Williams hit back at the group’s ex-manager over claims made about his past drug-taking.
At the weekend the superstar appeared in BBC documentary Boybands Forever, lifting the lid on the experiences of various boyband members.
Nigel Martin-Smith, who managed Take That in the 90s, also popped up and put his spin on Williams’s addictions.
The music honcho said: “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 twat, Nigel, it’s his fault that I’m behaving like a w***er.’”
Taking to his socials, Robbie, who has been open about his substance abuse struggles, set the record straight.
He wrote: “Allow me to respond to your assertion. My drug taking was never your fault. My response to the warped world that surrounded me is solely my own…
“If you are following the story closely, you can’t help but notice a pattern emerge. Boys join a boyband. The band becomes huge. Boys get sick.”
The Come Undone singer then namechecks bandmates Mark Owens and Gary Barlow, who battled alcoholism and bulimia respectively.
He continued: “I will also remind you that the person acting like a ‘w***er’ was 16 when he joined the band and 21 when he left. That was the last time I saw you.”
Dad-of-four Rob felt gaslit by Nigel’s version of his truth – but insists he has no hard feelings towards the man.
He added: “It is not okay for me that my trauma at the time is being represented as a figment of my imagination, or a tool to ingratiate myself with a gullible general public…
“Even though I find you hard to like, I don’t hate you. I don’t blame you for my addictions, and I am not angry with you. I want you to experience joy, and I want you to experience peace.”
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