Robbie Williams has dubbed his ex-girlfriend Nicole Appleton ‘a complete angel’ as he opened up on their turbulent relationship and her heartbreaking abortion in the nineties.

In a new interview with Hello! Magazine, the Take That singer 50, discussed his upcoming biopic Better Man, which covers his nineties romance with the All Saints star, 49.

He explained that he invited her to an early screening, before admitting: ‘The most difficult bit is watching Nicole and what we went through because she was instructed to get rid of our baby…’ 

The singer added: ‘I didn’t make her do that – but I was a f****** awful boyfriend, like, really awful, and I was in the height of my addiction and alcoholism.

‘And it breaks my heart every time I watch it because she’s a complete angel, and there’s still shame attached to who I was then.’

Robbie added that he called her as soon as she left the screening and both of them shed tears.

Robbie Williams has dubbed ex-girlfriend Nicole Appleton ‘a complete angel’ as he opened up on their turbulent relationship and her heartbreaking abortion in the nineties

Thee Take That star, 50, discussed his upcoming biopic Better Man, which looks back on his nineties romance with the All Saints star, 49

Nicole revealed her side of the relationship and breakup in her 2002 autobiography Together, writing how she fell pregnant with Robbie’s baby but after pressure from All Saints’ record company she had an abortion.

Recalling Robbie’s reaction to her pregnancy at the time, she said: ‘Robbie Williams put his hand on my belly and told me, “This baby is saving my life.'”‘

Robbie backed his ex’s decision to write about the abortion in her autobiography but later admitted reliving it had ‘torn him apart’.

‘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 comes after he reflected on his relationship with Nicole in his revealing Netflix documentary last year.

Home video footage showed the pop couple in the early days of their romance after they met on Top Of The Pops in 1997. 

Footage then shows the moment a besotted Robbie, who was in the middle of his hugely successful solo career at the time, proposed over a brief phone call.

Looking back on the nine-month relationship, during which the couple split multiple times, Robbie explained how he was in ‘no fit state’ to commit.

The singer added: ‘I didn’t make her do that – but I was a f****** awful boyfriend, like, really awful, and I was in the height of my addiction and alcoholism

Home video footage shows the pop couple in the early days of their romance after they met on Top Of The Pops in 1997

Looking back on the nine-month relationship, during which the couple split multiple times, Robbie explains how he was in ‘no fit state’ to commit

Read More Robbie Williams reveals his mother has dementia

Over footage of the early weeks of their romance, Robbie said it was inevitable that his and Nicole’s ‘paths would cross’ thanks to their parallel pop careers.

‘She was kind and fun and sweet, you know she’s just a good soul,’ Robbie says in the documentary. ‘With my relationship with Nic, it was very important to me to learn to become the man I was supposed to be.’

But he admitted he wasn’t ready for a relationship, explaining how after joining Take That at just 16-years-old ‘nobody graduates from childhood fame well balanced.’

‘The years of finding yourself, maturing and growing up that everybody has it taken away from you.

Robbie is then seen proposing to Nicole in a brief phone call while he is on the road.

‘I guess that I’m trying to convince myself that I’m the kind of person that is ready for that kind of commitment, I know I’m not,’ Robbie says in the voice over.

‘I couldn’t look after myself I was in no fit state to offer myself as a partner and the relationship with Nic ended a few months after this.’

Robbie described how at that time he ‘felt like an infant in a grown up world.’

‘I guess that I’m trying to convinced myself that I’m the kind of person that is ready for that kind of commitment, I know I’m not,’ Robbie says in the voice over

Over footage of the early weeks of their romance, Robbie says it was inevitable that his and Nicole’s ‘paths would cross’ thanks to their parallel pop careers

He had experienced huge success in his post-Take That career with the release of Angels in 1997 but was battling an ongoing addiction to alcohol and drugs, which began in his boyband days.

‘I was ingesting everything I could get my hands on – ecstasy, cocaine, drinking. I’m literally drinking like a bottle of vodka a night before going into rehearsals, so that’s happening every night,’ he says. 

Nicole went on to date Liam Gallagher two years after splitting from Robbie, with the two marrying in 2008 and welcoming their son Gene, now 22.

The former couple divorced in April 2014 after splitting in 2013 when she discovered he had fathered a child with American journalist Liza Ghorbani.

Nicole is now in a ‘wonderful second marriage’ to Stephen Haines and mum to Gene and her daughter Skipper, three.

Robbie meanwhile shares four children with his wife of 13-years Ayda Field.