Charlotte Church has reflected on the media frenzy surrounding her when she turned 16.
The Welsh musician, who rose to fame as a classical singer aged 12 and went on to sell 10 million records, was subject to heightened attention from the tabloid press as a teenager.
Radio DJ Chris Moyles publicly offered to take her virginity when she turned 16, the age of consent, and when Church fell pregnant with her ex-partner rugby player Gavin Henson at 21, the media had reported her pregnancy before she was able to tell her family the news.
Speaking in a new interview with The Observer, Church said that her character was “taken from me, and made into something salacious, or something to be ridiculed”.
“I’ve been made into this caricature: sexualised, patronised, ridiculed,” she said.
Church gave an example of her appearance on Question Time in 2015, explaining: “I suggested, as was being presented in research at the time, that climate change and drought played a role in war breaking out in Syria.”
“When I said it, it was all over the papers: ‘Voice of an Angel, Brain of Angel Delight: Charlotte Church blames climate change for jihadis.’”
Church believes that the tabloid media tried to make her a “figure of ridicule who was thick, and a tart, and a drunk”.
She continued: “Now don’t get me wrong, I got myself into certain…Well did I, actually? I mean, I had sex. I went clubbing with friends. Only the tabloids were always right there, poised to orchestrate any sort of downfall.”
In 2021, Church detailed the effects in evidence to the Leveson inquiry, a public inquiry into the practices and ethics of the British press following the phone hacking scandal.
“I started to understand deeply what the experience me and my family had at the hands of the press really was,” Church told the paper. “How dramatic and painful and shaming and ugly it was for us all. It really politicised me, seeing the insidious relations between police, press and government.”
In 2023, Church opened her nature retreat centre in Wales, called The Dreaming, which offers respite for guests – but it immediately became a sanctuary for her to escape.
“Part of all this for me has been having the time to cocoon and to heal my wounds inflicted in that exposure,” she said. “I was made such tabloid fodder, for such long periods of time, lots of people just saw me as a celebrity.”
“A piss-head celebrity, really. It was a time with lots of misogyny flying about, especially towards working-class women, or women who were outspoken.”
Speaking to The Independent in 2022 about opening her retreat centre, she said she wanted to do her bit in helping “save humanity and help us live more consciously and more fulfillingly with the natural world”.
Rhydoldog House, the former home of designer Laura Ashley, has 49 acres of woodland and grounds.
She said that her goal is to help “people to relax, to slow down, to face themselves, to find beauty and nature, and to be loving”.
“All of the practices of capitalism are deepening our unhappiness, and our inability to live with ourselves,” she said. “This constant entertainment, this constant distraction, means that we can’t be connected.”
