The 36-year-old star said it was during his time with band Take That that he was frightened for his life after becoming one of the UK's biggest pop stars.
He told Britain's The Sunday Times Style magazine: 'There's 500 girls outside your house in Tunstall, and the police have to close the road.
Coaches pull up from Germany and 50 girls get out, rip your garden up, jump over the fence and nick your washing.
'To my mother it was hell. We were constantly under threat of being burgled. I slept with a starting pistol and a hammer under my pillow. My mum closed the curtains in 1991 and didn't open them again until 1995.
'She was miserable, which made me miserable. In my head, what was going to happen was we'd play the NEC, then I'd come home and go to the pub and get
ed with my friends.'