Robbie Williams was cruelly forced out of Take That by Jason Orange leaving Mark Owen in tears

Robbie Williams broke the hearts of the nation when he sensationally left Take That 27 years ago. The youngest of the band, Robbie was only 16 years old when he joined the fivesome alongside Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Howard Donald and Jason Orange reports the Mirror.

The group went on to have immense success with 12 singles reaching number one and eight BRIT Awards to their name. On Saturday, the remaining Take That members - Gary, Howard and Mark - are performing tracks from their new album, This Life, at the BBC Radio Theatre in London.

Now, we take a look back at the cruel moment the original group parted ways back in 1995 when teenage Robbie was kicked out.

A documentary in 2005, titled For The Record, explained inner struggles of Take That's initial chart domination, with Robbie said to have felt increasingly frustrated with his role within the band. The star believed his musical ideas were often dismissed by the bands then manager, Nigel Martin Smith.

Gary also admitted his bandmate became despondent and stopped offering his thoughts on their new music and simply "did what he was told". The Angels singer also later admitted he told his bandmates their upcoming tour would be his last.

He explained on BBC Radio 4: "I said to the boys, 'This will be my last tour.' We went for a curry the night before everything happened and we were taking a competition winner for a curry. It mustn't have been a very nice evening for them. I went back to the hotel and got drunk again, got up the next day, went into rehearsals and I wasn't in a very good way."

Following his infamous trip to Glastonbury and various missed rehearsals, the rest of the band were left furious when he returned to work, explaining to him exactly what they thought.

They felt if he wasn't prepared to commit to what they were trying to achieve, he had to go. Jason was tasked with telling Robbie he was no longer needed as the Take That boys prepared for another huge tour.

Robbie said: "During the afternoon, Jason Orange said, 'Bob, we need to sit you down and have a chat. So you're going to leave after this tour and what we've decided is, we think it's best you go now, so we can prove we can do this as a four-piece. What do you think?' That was the opening of the door. That's all I needed."

However, it wasn't just fans of the band who were left upset over his departure, but his bandmates were also left heartbroken, with Mark later admitting

the last time he'd cried had been when Robbie left the band. In shock at being out of Take That, Robbie was driven back to Stoke-on-Trent in tears. It later emerged by that point the singer was already in the grips of alcoholism.

He later admitted: "I was a pathetic, pitiful creature. The first thing I would do in the morning would be to empty the bottle of wine that I had fallen asleep over two hours earlier. I'd have taken a line of coke because I couldn't get up without it."

And without the structure of work to keep him in line, Robbie began partying even harder.

He gained weight and began resenting his former bandmates for how they treated him, branding his Gary a 'clueless w**ker' and said the group, "had all the creativity of mentally unstable morons".

"I hated our music and in the end I also hated myself," he raged. But for Gary, things couldn't have looked more different. He had worked out and got into shape and when Take That split a few years later, he launched his solo career.

He accused Robbie of being jealous of his £6.5million fortune earned from his songwriting royalties.

"I do wonder if that's the source of his feelings because I probably made six times more than they did," he sniped before his debut single Forever Love rode in at number one. But everything changed in a heartbeat with Robbie's breakthrough song Angels.

The 1997 song was a huge success and catapulted Robbie to a whole new league of fame.

He won three BRIT Awards and sold six million records while Gary was forced to cancel a show at Glasgow's Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre because of ticketing issues. And when Gary's second album, Stronger, limped into the charts at number 35 he got dropped by his record label and relegated to the proverbial scrap heap.

Madame Tussauds even melted his waxwork down.

Gary struggled to understand how Robbie had got to where he had, lamenting the fact his nemesis had shown zero interest in writing, preferring to 'pick his nose' in the corner. And he knew Robbie would be loving it.

"I can imagine the chat they'll be having in Robbie-land tonight," he said at the time. "The cheers, wolf whistles and belly laughs. There's no question now, mate, you're the winner, hands down.”

For Robbie, his success was like a red rag to a bull. And when friends warned him not to throw it all away amid his spiralling battle with drink and drugs, he sniped: "Throw it all away? And see that fat **** Barlow dance on my grave? No way."

Despite his fame, he continued to criticise Gary and Take That at every opportunity, admitting: "My problem has always been with Gary. It was always with Gary. I wanted to crush him. I wanted to crush the memory of the band - and I didn't let go. You know, even when he was down, I didn't let go."

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