Pacing the floor of his suite as his retinue of advisers and hangers-on sat heads bowed in embarrassed silence, the singer launched into a four-letter-word-strewn stream of consciousness, complaining about everything from his constant insomnia to how he feels his fans don't appreciate him enough.

It was a somewhat erratic performance and one that - sadly for the talented Williams - has become an all too regular occurrence in recent weeks.

Five months into a gruelling world tour (this week he finished the UK leg after playing to more than half a million British fans) and his fragile health is of grave concern to those around him. Not least because it is threatening to cost his record company - and the star - a fortune.

This week, his management team announced that Robbie's £10 million tour of the Far East, planned for November, is being cancelled as they finally confirmed rumours that the star is exhausted and stressed.

On Tuesday, his understandably jittery handlers put him on a flight back to his home in Los Angeles for a two-week break, in the hope that he will recuperate in time to resume the tour in South America next month.

At the same time, the planned release of his new album (tastelessly titled Rudebox) has been thrown into disarray over a vitriolic and ranting attack by the former Take That singer on his exmanager, contained in the lyrics of one of its songs.

Threats of legal action have led to panic at EMI, with the record label facing the possibility of having to hold up the October 23 launch date amid rumours that the track will have to be scrubbed.

Meanwhile, Williams's lawyers are preparing for a £1million libel writ from Nigel Martin-Smith, the manager who masterminded Take That's rise to fame and the subject of the song's scathing lyrics.

Martin-Smith is incandescent over the track, called The 90s, which makes a series of allegations about his treatment of Williams, who joined Take That as a 16-year-old.

But EMI's plan to jettison the song, or at the very least bleep out some of the lyrics (it has already removed the offending track from promotional copies of the CD), has not gone down well with Williams himself, the Mail has learned.

Insiders at the Williams camp reveal that the star has been advised by his legal team to make no further reference to the dispute with Martin-Smith for fear of inflaming the row.

Hardly surprising, then, that there were gasps of horror from Robbie's management and invited record company executives when the unpredictable star went on stage at the Milton Keynes Bowl last week and rapped an impromptu version of the potentially highly defamatory song to 65,000 of his fans.

One line includes the words: 'He's such an evil man. I used to fantasise I'd take a Stanley knife and go and play with his eyes.' All very unpleasant, and enough to have his lawyers squirming in case a recording of the section of the show becomes public. Too late, a fan, who filmed the unscheduled rendition on her mobile phone, has already posted the clip on the highly popular YouTube website.

This week, Elton John, who used to be close to Williams before they fell out when Robbie bizarrely accused him of once trying to kidnap him to get him off drugs, went public with his concerns.

At the same time, he has won his battle against drink and drugs that once not only threatened his career, but also his life. So what, then, is going on with Robbie and why, at the age of 32, does he still seem so intent on self-destruction?

It is no secret that he has been harbouring an unhealthy obsession with Martin-Smith since he walked out of Take That in 1995, complaining the control exerted on him led him to alcoholism and drug-taking.

Since then, he has wasted no chance to pour opprobrium on his Svengali-like ex-manager and his former Take That companions (he refused to join them on their comeback tour this year, and last week was still mocking them from the stage).

But at the same time, he seems incapable of enjoying the success (£100 million fortune) his talent has earned him. Friends say he has become increasingly nostalgic for the life he had in Stoke-on-Trent before he found fame.

He has spent days in front of his computer on the Friends Reunited website, tracking down his old school chums and telling those close to him that he wishes he could go back to being unknown.

But his nostalgia for his schooldays is also at the root of one bizarre episode which involves a former childhood sweetheart, Rachel Gilson, whom he has described as his 'one and only true love'. They dated at school and have been in touch on and off in the intervening years.

As he became increasingly wistful for a life long gone, he decided to look up the girl he described with unflinching certainty to friends as 'the one that got away'.

Those same friends, it should be said, have become all too used to such assertions. Williams, they say, is wont to indulge in flights of fancy about women he barely knows, imagining himself married and playing happy families within minutes of meeting a new woman.

Last summer, Williams rang Rachel out of the blue at her home in Bury, Lancs. There was little small talk. Neither of them was getting any younger, he told her. He was finally 'ready to settle down'.

With the impetuousness that has become familiar to those around him, Robbie told Rachel to pack a bag and said his PA would arrange to fly her out to Los Angeles that week. Rachel was swept off her feet and agreed.

Five days later, they had their answer. Amid claims that she blamed his bizarre behaviour on the anti-depressants he takes daily, a tearful Rachel fled home to Britain.

Friends report that the pair spent the first couple of days at his Beverly Hills mansion like a couple of loved-up teenagers, discussing their future together and exploring his adopted city.

Rachel spent one last traumatic night in the house and departed for England the following day. In the intervening months, according to those around him, he has embarked on a series of short-lived affairs with women in Los Angeles including, it is claimed, U.S. model Jessica Cole. Meanwhile, on tour he remains surrounded by a retinue of willing groupies.

His constant companion, however, is his childhood friend Jonathan Wilkes, who performs a nightly and highly camp performance of Me And My Shadow with Williams on stage.

They have given themselves the nicknames 'Flank' and 'Spank' and allowed themselves to be filmed semi-naked in a paddling pool on Robbie's current tour, jokily discussing whether the singer might end up settling down with a man.

Such behaviour was particularly strange, given that Robbie took legal action nine months ago over a Sunday newspaper's false claim that he was involved in a gay encounter in the toilet of a Manchester nightclub.

At the same time, the star's fans have been posting their concerns for his health on a series of fan websites after he appeared to be sweating profusely during one of his Milton Keynes shows last week. Indeed, one pop reviewer described him as looking 'bloated and dishevelled'.

And a source within his entourage told the Mail: 'The past few weeks before we arrived back in Britain have been pretty awful. Some days Rob has been sleeping till 3pm, then saying he can't go on stage that night.

Five months into his gruelling £10m world tour and Robbie's world is in free fall. Erratic performances, fragile health and a failed bid to find love with his childhood sweetheart - is this the end of the road for the star?

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