Robbie Williams, Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Howard Donald and Jason Orange were five cheeky heartthrobs many girls famously pined over during the nineties.
As boyband Take That, racking up hits like Relight My Fire and Back For Good during their glory days, they appeared to be unstoppable. During their heyday, the group was one of the top British boybands, with their second album Everything Changes selling three million copies worldwide.
But how did the five get together and become so popular? A new BBC documentary, which airs on Saturday, called Boybands Forever, probes into the history of groups like Take That, alongside others like East 17, Westlife and Blue.
Take That’s manager Nigel Martin-Smith says during the documentary – which also documents the band’s 2006 return – that it all started when Gary Barlow came to him with songs he’d written. Shocked at his potential, Nigel said he had to ‘form a group around Gary’, and Take That was born in 1990.
But the quintet was not to last for long, with Robbie Williams leaving in July 1995 in the middle of their Nobody Else world tour. He went on to launch his own highly successful solo career, performing to sold-out arenas and releasing hits such as Angels and She’s The One.
Near the beginning of 1996, the remaining four split, though they eventually returned in 2006, without Robbie. However, the group appeared to make amends as he came back for one album, Progress, in 2010.
Despite their attempts at solo success, it wasn’t all smooth sailing, as many of the former boyband members’ careers dried up before the group reformed. With record labels dropping the solo artists, some were thrust into alcoholism and depression.
Here, FEMAIL looks into how each of the bandmates’ careers fared during their decade-long break.
Gary Barlow
Gary Barlow is said to have found Take That’s split particularly difficult and is understood to have suffered from a lengthy bout of depression as a result, turning to marijuana, alcohol and junk food to ease the pain.
He endured these mental health struggles for around three years, saying he felt ’embarrassed’ to be by himself, as his solo career never took off.
Speaking with the Observer magazine in 2011, Gary said: ‘I used to heavily disguise myself, with a hat and everything. I was overweight, I wasn’t feeling great. I was embarrassed to be me, to have people recognise me.’
Gary turned to food as an outlet and began overeating and gained five stone, causing him to hit over 17 stone.
As a result, for some time, he refused to pose for photographs – even at his own children’s christenings.
He said the things that bothered him most were not hearing the phone ring and waking up with nothing to do.
Gary added: ‘It was all a bit of a torment. I had this beautiful white piano, my lucky piano. Every hit I’d had, I’d written on this piano.
‘Within six months of this not happening any more, this piano drove me mad, to the point where I spent days just looking at it, lying underneath it, lying on top of it, rubbing my face on it, going slowly insane, trying to work out why this thing wasn’t delivering to me like it used to.’
Gary has also admitted that he was jealous of the success Robbie had when he broke away from the band.
He was expected to be the band’s star, but instead, it was Robbie who became the most famous, mingling with other pop stars, before eventually leaving the band in 1995.
In his book, A Different Stage, Gary revealed he was envious of Robbie breaking free from Take That to do his own thing, admitting that he wished it was him who had had the courage to leave.
He wrote: ‘I felt a bit jealous that I wasn’t the one who’d stood up and said, “Up yours, I wanna have some fun. I’m a pop star, I’m going to behave like one for a bit”.
‘None of us wanted to leave Take That, but watching someone else leave I — we all — couldn’t help but think about taking the leap too.’
Gary went on to detail how during that time he turned to drink and marijuana to numb his pain and was even afraid to work.
He penned: ‘My confidence was shot, I had become terrified of my piano. I went to my studio most days only to pretend to work.
‘Weed, fags, coffee, booze and beige food were a way to take the pain away.’
Gary also spoke about suffering with eating disorder bulimia, and cutting himself off from the rest of the world.
He continued: ‘I purged into darkness, in private, alone, in the farthest corners of my pop-star mansion. I was ashamed of my bulimia.
‘Was that my shame at what had happened with my career and all the feelings I had that I couldn’t make sense of? Was the bulimia my “unexpressed emotions” […] come forth in uglier ways?’
Gary realised that he had not sung outside of the studio for seven years, until Take That got back together in 2006.
The Rule The World singer told The Sun at the time: ‘I never saw myself being back on stage again. Now I can look back and see just how bad things were.
‘The reason I hadn’t thought about going back on stage was that there was no possibility of people wanting me back up there.
‘It was horrible the way it ended. Nobody wants any involvement in you whatsoever.’
After Take That broke up, Gary released his first solo album Open Road in 1997, followed by Twelve Months, Eleven Days in 1999.
But he was dropped by his record label when his second album flopped.
Gary has a theory why his solo career failed. He told the BBC: ‘I just lost my confidence and I made a record, 12 Months and 11 Days, by committee, the worst thing you can ever do – because when everybody’s happy, nobody’s happy.’
Making music by committee refers to where multiple people work on an album and its songs, which can lead to songs being changed many times.
Mark Owen
The year the group broke up, 1996, Mark Owens launched a solo album called The Green Man.
However, the record didn’t sell in the quantities it needed to succeed, leading to Mark getting dropped by his record label.
Songs such as Clementine and Child failed to make a dent in the UK charts, and the album only reached number 33 – still a major accomplishment, but a world away from the success he’d enjoyed with Take That.
He told the Mirror at the time: ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with the chart position.
‘I made a point of saying I didn’t care if people liked my solo stuff. But I knew it was b******s. I can pretend all day that I don’t care but I do, very much.’
He then made a grand return in 2003 with the album In Your Own Time, followed by How The Mighty Fall in 2005 a year before the band got back together – without Robbie.
Speaking about Indie album Green Man, Mark said he stood by the work he produced – and the fact he wrote it all himself.
He told the Guardian: ‘The easiest option for Mark Owen who came out of Take That was to get some other people to write some nice catchy pop tunes, and maybe I could have done that for a couple of years.
‘Then I probably would have been hated by everybody and [fallen] by the wayside.
‘But there wouldn’t have been an album unless I’d written it and it had come from me and I felt like it was my album. That’s all I was interested in.’
Mark also told the outlet that the slump in sales came as a surprise to him as he was used to selling millions with Take That.
He said: ‘Sales-wise now, it’s different from Take That, obviously. I… I admit I was surprised at that. It’s been slow and I’ve had to make an adjustment, ‘cos I was so used to being in a band where every song they put out went to No 1 and sold a million copies.
‘I might have been thinking it’ll start from where Take That left off, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
‘I’m pleased about that now. I want to sell records because they’re good enough. I feel that’s a very comfortable position to be in.’
The failure of his albums drove Mark into alcoholism, as he started finishing bottles of wine by himself alone at home.
He told the Sun at the time: ‘When I was up in the Lakes, living there for all those years on my own, I used to just drink every night.’
Although he did not join The X Factor as a judge like Gary, or sell out stadiums like Robbie, he did appear on Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 – and won the show.
He met, then married actress Emma Ferguson in 2009, and the pair welcomed two children.
But it emerged he had cheated on Emma with at least 10 other women, prompting her to threw him out. Mark then got help for his alcohol abuse by going to rehab.
The pair rekindled their love and then went on to have another child, a daughter named Fox, in 2012.
Now, Mark makes up one-third of Take That, alongside Gary and Howard. The trio went on tour earlier this year.
Howard Donald
After the band’s split in the mid-nineties, Howard penned an unreleased solo album.
He told New magazine at the time: ‘When the band split last time, I did record a solo album, but it’s not really my vibe. Could my solo work compete with us as a band? I don’t think so.’
However, he then returned back to DJing and released track Take Control in 2002 and even teamed up with Take That and Micky Slim for a track in 2011 called Kidz – Revenge Of The Kidz.
In 2007, Howard says he was offered a solo deal, but as it was with the same record label as Gary and Mark, it fell through.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News at the time, he said: ‘It was a strange time. I was offered a solo deal, recorded my own album, but with Gary and Mark being on the same label, things didn’t go as planned.
‘Besides, it didn’t feel right. I’ve always been the sort of person who wants to be surrounded by other people, instead of doing things on my own. I knew that once I started a solo career I was in for a lonely ride – I mean, coming from five lads to just one is such a massive change.’
Howard enjoys DJing and has been collecting records since 1985, purchasing his own decks shortly after in 1988.
He added: ‘Okay, so maybe I’m a few steps ahead of other up ‘n’ coming DJs, simply because I’ve got a name. But at the same time, to a lot of people, I’m still Howard Donald from Take That.’
Jason Orange
The singer, 54, never launched a solo career when the band broke up in the 90s, but did re-join Take That when they reformed in the noughties.
He went on to record Beautiful World, The Circus, Progress, Progressed and III, which was recorded in 2014.
Jason left the band that year in favour of a quieter life away from the spotlight and is rarely seen out and about in public.
When he left, he released the following statement: ‘I want to start by saying how proud I am of what we have achieved together over the years.
‘I have spent some of the best years of my life with Take That and I’d like to thank everyone who has been a part of my journey, including my bandmates, who I feel are like brothers to me.
‘Most especially my gratitude goes to all of the good and kind, beautiful and ever-loyal fans of the band, without whom none of this could have been possible. Thank-you.’
He added: ‘At the start of this year, and with my full knowledge and blessing, the guys began writing new material.
‘There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this.’
He ended the statement by saying that Mark, Gary and Howard had his ‘full support and encouragement’ to continue on another chapter, without him.
Jason revealed that he had begun to question whether it was time to give up his place in Take That towards the end of the Progress Tour – which took place in 2011.
In 2018, his former bandmate Howard revealed that Jason had stopped responding to calls after going completely off grid to live a ‘normal life’ in the countryside.
‘Jason has gone off the grid. He’s not taking emails or phone calls or stuff like that. That’s good for him,’ he told the Loose Women panel during an appearance on the daytime TV show.
‘That’s where he wants to be. I think he wants to be a million miles away from this at the moment.’
The star reportedly turned his back on the London party circuit, opting instead for quieter nights at low-key venues in and around his native Manchester.
Front man Gary previously told The Sun: ‘Jason isn’t coming back. Take That is Mark, Howard and me for the next few years.’
Mark even chimed in and told The Times: ‘I think [Jason] felt like he didn’t want to do it any more, but I’m not going to speak for him.’
He then said: ‘He’s still here anyway. The other day we were trying to work out who the best joke-teller in the band is and remembered how Jason always laughed before he got to the punchline.’
Jason wasn’t pictured for years, with the last public snap of him being taken in 2015 – until he was photographed in May last year, showcasing a new longer hairstyle.
Then Jason was snapped again this year in September, while strolling around the affluent area of St John’s Wood in London. He was reportedly spotted getting into his gold classic Mercedes-Benz.
