British superstar Robbie Willams' long-anticipated documentary aired on Netflix on Wednesday. The four-part series follows and documents the ups and downs of the No Regrets hitmaker.
Aptly titled Raw it will show his beginnings as a bright-eyed teen ready to set the charts alight with his Take That bandmates to the dark depths of his depression and addiction issues. The programme will also look at the troubled moments in his romantic life - which has been as much a roller coaster as his career.
One unbearable low came in the early days of him carving a path as a solo singer and falling for All Saints singer Nicole Appleton. The couple met while filming Top of The Pops in 1997 and began dating. A year later, Robbie proposed. But their happiness together was short-lived - after Nicole became pregnant and made the tough decision to abort the baby.
In her autobiography Together, Nicole says that four months into the pregnancy, she gave in to her record company's demands to terminate. When she first discovered she was having a baby, she told Robbie, who she said was thrilled.
Writing in her book, she said "Robbie put his hand on my belly and told me, 'This baby is saving my life'" - giving him a reason to fight his addictions to drink and drugs. But Nicole caved into pressure from her record company. "I couldn't believe what I had done," she said. "I wanted to kill myself. Afterwards, everyone pretended it hadn't happened."
The couple's relationship was never the same after the heartbreak and pain caused by the abortion. Robbie admitted that Nicole's decision to talk about it in her book “tore him apart”.
The star who lives in LA said: "I was completely behind her... If there's something that's so deep-rooted within yourself that you feel it would feel better to you that you exorcised it and got it off your chest because secrets can make you sick and secrets can make you feel terrible... then I'm completely behind her," he previously told the Daily Mail.
"It was really sad though, it was really sad. Obviously, I was gonna come back to England and there was gonna be questions like this asked, so I needed to know what was going on with it, and it really upset me and tore me apart a little bit."
Robbie supported Nicole through her marriage break up to Liam Gallagher in 2013 - after the Oasis star fathered a child with another woman - US journalist Liza Ghorbani. Speaking at the time Robbie said: "I have a very big soft spot for Nic because she’s a very decent person.
"I feel sorry for her as she deserves to be in a good place, in a happy marriage, and I thought she was with Liam. But it would appear that they weren’t.’ Nicole really doesn’t deserve all that from Liam. I’ve very, very fond memories of her. She’s a sweetie," Robbie added.
The pair have found their happy endings. Nicole who has 22 year old son Gene with Liam is now married to commercial director Stephen Haines. She gave birth to their daughter Skipper in March 2020. After marrying actress Ayda Field in 2010, Robbie and his wife have had four children Theodora 'Teddy' 11, Charlton 'Charlie', nine, Colette 'Coco and three-year-old Beau Benedict.
Robbie Williams on Netflix is available now
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