Robbie Williams says the apparent decline in his solo career during the mid to late 2000s encouraged him to rejoin Take That.

The singer enjoyed a hugely successful start to his solo endeavours after leaving the boyband in 1995, selling millions of concert tickets and enjoying No.1 hits.

However, he failed to grab any No.1 singles from his last three albums - 2005's 'Intensive Care', 2006's 'Rudebox' and 2009's 'Reality Killed The Video Star' - and he told The Sun that this made him join Take That again in 2010. He said:

"After the first four or five albums, when you are at the top of the pile, suddenly you start to hear, 'This is s***, Robbie is s***'. And then you start to think' 'Oh God, maybe I am s*** and I should try something else and be interesting'. So I went off to try to be interesting and I didn't write a hit."

He continued: "When you have everyone telling you your album doesn't have a first single, it shoots at your confidence. So I thought, 'F*** you - if you don’t think I can write a single then I'm going to rejoin Take That'. And I did."

It seems to have done the trick for the singer, however, with his new single 'Candy' currently sitting at the top of the UK singles chart.