Robbie Williams says he was having a nervous breakdown when he left Take That

Robbie Williams has said that when he quit Take That he was 'in the middle of a nervous breakdown'.

The Let Me Entertain You singer, 48, found fame with the boy band and fans were devastated when he left Gary Barlow and co in 1995.

He has now opened up about that period for BBC Radio 2's Robbie Williams: My Life Thru A Lens, revealing that at the time he 'needed to get out'.

Read more: Robbie Williams says wife has to keep painkillers under 'lock and key' at home

“I think that I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, my first of many,” The Independent quoted him as saying.

“All the information going into the computer had made the computer overload. Things weren’t great at home, things weren’t great with my job, and then I was new to this phenomena of extreme fame."

Williams, who has been open about his drug use during the height of his fame, said that he went from being a teenager doing his GSCEs to having thousands of fans gathering wherever he went and that it was "surreal".

"It felt like I was in some sort of burning building and I needed to get out," he explained.

Take That - Williams, Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen and Jason Orange - first formed as a boy band in 1990.

They went on to have huge hits such as Pray, Could It Be Magic? and Relight My Fire.

Williams went on to have a massive solo career after he left in 1995 and is now a married father of four.

Read more: Robbie Williams completely bald after wife Ayda shaves his head

The rest of the group carried on initially but went their separate ways in 1996, before reuniting in 2005.

In 2014 Orange quit the band, and Barlow, Donald and Owen continue to perform as a threesome.

Watch: Robbie Williams files trademark for wine range to rival bandmate Gary Barlow