I felt like I'd known Ayda forever

In his new Netflix documentary, Robbie Williams reveals how his wife Ayda Field helped rescue him from his addictions and he also opens up on dating Spice Girl Geri Horner and his rivalry with Take That bandmate Gary Barlow

Ayda Field beams as she remembers the fateful but surprisingly unromantic night back in 2006 when she fell in love with Robbie Williams. “It was like the universe opened up,” she recalls.

Mesmerised by this funny, beautiful “lifeforce”, Robbie felt the same. “I had this moment where I felt I’d known her forever,” he grins, before revealing how his demons almost ruined their budding romance, adding, “I guess I chose to ignore it.”

Sadly, Robbie – who was first diagnosed with depression in his early twenties – was in the grip of a terrifying drink and drugs relapse when he enjoyed his first date with Ayda out in Los Angeles. He had fallen off the wagon and was ingesting what he calls the “greatest hits” of drugs, including “prescribed speed, OxyContin, Adderall, Vicodin and morphine,” not to mention the rock’n’roll drug of choice, cocaine.

Alongside the prescription and illegal drugs he was consuming, Robbie was also mindlessly sleeping with as many groupies as he could. “It’s as old as time, the rock star sleeping with the groupies… I’m not the first and I won’t be the last,” he confesses in his candid new Netflix documentary.

Robbie might have been spiralling towards rock bottom, but actress Ayda was “in a great place” and cheerfully invited Robbie to a party with her. He told her he’d rather “stick knives in my eyes” and instead asked her to come to his house after the bash.

Ayda arrived to find the house in darkness, and Robbie confesses, “I’d just seen off my dealer who I was sleeping with at the time.” Understandably,