Robbie Williams admits he was a "d***" to Madonna

Speaking on SiriusXM Hits 1, he admitted: "That's not nice of me.

"Here's the thing, too, is I absolutely adore her and love her.

"The thing is about being a '90s British person [was that] it was wrestling. You did this thing in the press where - which made me me and made us us - you fill a space.

"In the '90s and the tail end of that, you filled a space sometimes by being mean, but funny."

He insisted: "I adore her, respect her, love her music, love everything about her, everything that she's managed to do in her career. "I've been a d***. I can be a d***."

In the same interview, to promote his new biopic 'Better Man' - in which the cheeky pop star is played by a CGI monkey - Robbie shared his admiration for another pop idol, Taylor Swift, and praised the 35-year-old singer for the way she handles the negative sides of being one of the biggest stars on the planet with such "poise".

He gushed: "I love Taylor Swift. Who doesn't and who can't?

"There are levels to this stuff, and she is achieving levels that have been unreached, unmatched."

Noting how, at the height of his fame, the 'Angels' hitmaker suffered a "nervous breakdown" due to the pressures of being in the public eye and self-medicated with drugs and alcohol, he continued: "When I was in my pocket of omnipresence, I couldn't help but go, 'Hey, this is what crazy looks like. This is making me crazy.' And people went, 'Oh, he's being crazy.'

"The poise that she has, and the way that she is navigating very, very unfair things levelled at her.

"She's just a girl singing some songs, trying to entertain people, [but] obviously, with great love comes great hate too. With omnipresence, comes the crazy and she's navigating it all so well, it would seem from the outside."