Jason Orange’s shock exit from Take That rocked fans in 2014, almost 20 years after the band’s biggest star Robbie Williams also quit the group. Now we know why he left.
Orange announced his sudden departure from the band in September 2014 with a statement where he confessed he’d been questioning his place in the band for some time.
However, he didn’t give a clear explanation as to why he was leaving, stating only that there were no “fallings out” and he “no longer wish[ed] to do this”.
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It didn’t stop fans from speculating about his sudden exit but now, almost nine years on, Orange’s former bandmates have revealed the truth behind his exit.
Gary Barlow, 52, Mark Owen, 51, and Howard Donald, 55, confirmed this week that after years of touring and making music, Orange just “didn’t want” that life anymore.
“I think [Jason] felt like he didn’t want to do it any more,” Owen told The Times, before adding, “but I’m not going to speak for him”.
Orange was with the group for over 20 years before leaving to enjoy a quiet, private life “off the grid” but Owen confessed that it feels like he’s still part of the band even now.
“He’s still here anyway. The other day we were trying to work out who the best joke-teller in the band is and remembered how Jason always laughed before he got to the punchline,” he said.
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Fellow bandmate Donald revealed in 2018 that, after leaving the group, Orange moved to the countryside and stopped taking calls and emails while he focused on his personal life.
“That’s good for him… that’s where he wants to be. I think he wants to be a million miles away from this at the moment,” he said during an appearance on Loose Women.
Orange hinted at his dissatisfaction with the pop star life in his own exit statement in 2014, where he wrote: “At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That.”
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In another section, he said: “At a band meeting last week I confirmed to Mark, Gary and Howard that I do not wish to commit to recording and promoting a new album.”
He thanked his bandmates for an incredible career together and Orange split from the group on good terms. The same can’t be said of Robbie Williams’ exit from the band in 1995.
Williams quit Take That in the middle of the group’s Nobody Else world tour, sparking a bitter feud between him and Barlow
“I think that I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, my first of many,” he confessed of his exit last year.
“Things weren’t great at home, things weren’t great with my job, and then I was new to this phenomena of extreme fame… it felt like I was in some sort of burning building and I needed to get out.”
After leaving the group, Williams took aim at Barlow and Take That several times, before patching things up years later.
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