Gary Barlow sings out of tune when he drinks.
The Take That singer, 53, has been open about how he was forced to overhaul his lifestyle after he began binge eating after Take That split for the first time in 1996, leaving him severely depressed – and the singer says he is now able to enjoy boozing as long as he keeps his life in balance.
But Gary told the Daily Mail in an interview to promote his range of organic wines about how he has to restrict his drinking if he’s performing: “(I only drink) after a show. I can’t drink before – it alters your hearing.
“I can’t tune once I’ve had a drink. But it’s consistently afterwards. We never miss an opportunity to celebrate.
“Mark (Owen) and Howard (Donald – his Take That bandmates) don’t drink, so it’s me and the team and the musicians.’
When asked if he owns a vineyard as part of his wine business, Gary replied: “Oh goodness, no. I don’t know if I’d love that, to be honest. The part I play in all this is to bring my audience a choice of what I think is the best wine in the world and make it affordable.”
Gary has sold 10 million glasses of his organic wine, and has been making a new television series called ‘Gary Barlow’s Wine Tour: South Africa’.
It sees him hanging out in vineyards, eating and cooking barbecue food with his pals including ITV presenter Ben Shephard as well as singers Mica Paris and Jane McDonald.
Gary said about the ITV project: “We drank a lot of wine and we had a lot of laughs.”
The singer told the Mail about his addictive personality that led him to previously binge eat: “If you have a smoking addiction, you just don’t smoke. But with food, you’ve got to eat anyway, so you’ve got to work it out.
“Some years are better than others, but in general as long as I’m doing four things – sleeping, exercising well, walking a good amount per day, not drinking too much – food isn’t an issue.”
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