Why Take That star Robbie Williams used to sleep with a gun under his pillow

Oct 10 2010 by Jonny Greatrex, Sunday Mercury

SUPERSTAR heartthrob Robbie Williams was a ladies’ man long before his Take That fame, best mate Jonathan Wilkes has revealed.

The Angels singer recently told how hordes of female fans would turn up outside his mum’s house during the band’s early days.

And Robbie says he was so worried about them breaking in to his family home in Stoke-on-Trent that he slept with a starter PISTOL and HAMMER under his pillow.

But best friend Wilkes, 32, says his life-long pal was used to getting lots of female attention long before he hit the big time.

“I don’t know anything about the starting pistol and hammer – but Robbie never struggled for girls before Take That,’’ he laughed.

‘‘He was doing alright.”

Robbie, 36, married American actress Ayda Field this summer and the couple live in a beautiful mansion in Los Angeles.

But when he joined a then unknown band called Take That in the early 90s, he was still living with his beloved mum Jan in Tunstall.

The family’s home soon became a site of pilgrimage for young fans hoping to glimpse one of the UK’s biggest pop stars.

“There’s 500 girls outside your house in Tunstall, and the police have to close the road,” Robbie recently recalled.

“Coaches pull up from Germany and 50 girls get out, rip your garden up, jump over the fence and nick your washing.