When Robbie Williams recently cancelled the dates at the tail-end of his tour due to 'illness', most people assumed that he had picked up some sort of bug or was generally fatigued after a long year.

However, it seems that things were much more serious than just a bad cold or losing his voice, as he reveals that test results for an unspecified condition left him in intensive care.

In a video posted to YouTube, he explained: "I’ve been recovering from an illness now for the last five weeks. Unfortunately, that illness kicked in just at the end of my tour - a tour which was going so well.

"They were very worrying and I ended up in ICU, so I couldn’t go. I haven’t pulled out of a tour for bad health since 1998 so you know if I can’t do it then there’s something going on that I just can’t do it."

Whatever the illness was, he seems to have recovered - although it was scary enough for him to undergo a major lifestyle change and become vegan.

Watch the video below: