Charlotte Church: how many children does the singer have, who is her husband, why did she fall out with her mum?

Charlotte Church appears on Kate Garraway’s Life Story tonight (Thursday 17 February) to discuss her ascent to fame at the age of 11.

In the new series, the popular Welsh singer and her mother, Maria, become emotional, as they discuss how Charlotte left home at the age of 16.

Who is Charlotte Church?

Charlotte Church, 35, is a Welsh singer, actress, presenter and political activist from Cardiff.

She rose to fame at the age of 11 as a classical singer and sang in English, Welsh, Latin, French and Italian. In 1998, she released her first album, Voice of an Angel, after her manager, Jonathan Shalit, negotiated a contract with Sony Music.

The album was a huge hit and her following albums, Charlotte Church, Dream A Dream and Enchantment were just as successful.

In 2005, Charlotte released her first pop album called Tissues and Issues, and five years later released Back to Scratch (2010).

Charlotte has appeared in several TV shows such as Heartbeat, Have I got News for You and The Catherine Tate Show.

She recently appeared as Mushroom on the third series of The Masked Singer and came second.

Charlotte’s personal life and relationships have often been the subject of intense and intrusive coverage in UK tabloid newspapers.

In 2012, she accepted £600,000 in damages and costs in a settlement about the News International phone-hacking scandal and claimed that 33 stories appearing in News of the World were gained through illegally hacking into her family’s voicemail.

Who is Charlotte Church married to and how many children does she have?

Charlotte has three children from two relationships.

She was previously engaged to rugby player Gavin Henson and has two children with him, Ruby, 14, and Dexter, 13.

The couple split in 2010.

Now she is married to Jonathan Powell, a singer, songwriter and producer.

The couple has one daughter together, who they welcomed in August 2020. They named their baby Frida.

Why did Charlotte Church fall out with her mum?

On Kate Garraway’s Life Stories, Charlotte will be discussing her relationship with her mum.

At the age of 16, Charlotte left the family home in pursuit of being a normal teenager and to have some time apart from her family, as her mother accompanied her throughout her career.

In a clip shown to Charlotte, Maria said: "It was like a pressure cooker, she felt like she’d been so pent up for years and years and years, she just wanted to explode."

She further said: "I felt lost, I felt isolated, I think I just totally shut down, I just literally sat on the floor and cried and I had a nervous breakdown. For months and months and months I couldn’t get out of bed."

Explaining why she left, Charlotte said: "As far as I am concerned, I needed to be free...I felt I had to be this other eternally young, innocent little girl...I just had to cut the ties.

"It’s only with hindsight that I knew just what it meant to my Mum. It felt like they had completely lost me and just this whole life that we had built together for the last few years."

Charlotte said she "totally understands" what her parents went through and felt sorry for the devastating effect it had on her mum.

Charlotte Church appears on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories on Thursday 17 February 2022 on ITV at 9pm.

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