Robbie Williams admits “sense of shame” for being “idiot boyfriend” to Nicole Appleton

Robbie Williams has opened up about his past relationship with Nicole Appleton, admitting he feels a “sense of shame” for being an “idiot boyfriend”.

The former Take That singer spoke to The One Show on November 26 about his new semi-autobiographical film Better Man, where Williams is depicted as a CGI chimpanzee.

He went on to say that the scenes portraying his former relationship with All Saints‘ Nicole Appleton were “the most difficult bits” to watch. Appleton and Williams met in 1997 on Top Of The Pops; they dated shortly after with Williams proposing but ended their relationship in 1999.

Speaking on The One Show, Williams said: “I think the bits with Nicky Appleton are the most difficult bits because everybody else in the movie was villainous in my life in some way or another, and she’s the only person that didn’t do me any harm.

“So when I watched that, I feel a sense of shame that I was her idiot boyfriend at the time. She didn’t deserve that – she’s a good person.”

In the same interview, Robbie Williams clarified why he’s played by a CGI monkey in the film. Directed and co-writtten by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman), the film is due for release in the UK on Boxing Day (December 26) and in select US cinemas on Christmas Day (December 25).

Williams explained that it was one of Gracey’s ideas: “I love eccentricity and I love unusual and I love surreal – and it made complete sense to me as soon as [Gracey] pitched it to me. I don’t know if this film would be as talked about if it hadn’t had the monkey in it.

“And it does, and it has. And it all makes sense when you see it.”

In other news, Robbie Williams has hit out at ex-Take That manager over drug use claims in a boyband documentary, and shared the soundtrack for Better Man alongside a new single, ‘Forbidden Road’.