Gary Barlow opens up about losing his daughter. Take That’s Gary Barlow has opened up about the stillbirth of his daughter Poppy.

The 47-year-old singer and songwriter spoke with Lauren Laverne on BBC’s Radio 4 Desert Island Discs about his family’s tragic experience, saying: “For anyone who has been through anything like this I think it’s something you accept you’re going to be dealing with the rest of your life.”

He continued: “In a strange way you don’t want it to end because it’s one of the few things you have to remind you of the person that’s not there. In some ways the pain and the grief brings you closer to them.”

He initially felt that his bereavement was “too painful and private to talk or comment on publicly”.

Explaining why he decided to write about Poppy in his autobiography, ‘A Better Me’, Gary said: “It felt important to me as a 47-year-old man to talk about something bad that’s happened and how it made me feel. You can pick up several magazines and know how women deal with things and learn how other people have experienced them and for some reason men don’t talk about those things.”

When Poppy died six years ago, the family released a statement, which read: “Our focus now is giving [Poppy] a beautiful funeral and loving our three children with all our hearts. We’d ask at this painful time that our privacy be respected.”

Days later, Take That performed at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.

The former X Factor judge and his wife Dawn are parents to Daniel, 18, Emily, 16, and Daisy, 9.

Gary Barlow opens up about losing his daughter