Charlotte Church has revealed she resorted to eating raw potato as a child because her parents did not feed her other vegetables.
The singer, who grew up in Cardiff, said she was so deficient in fresh veg that she used to eat cut up raw spuds before her grandmother cooked them as chips.
Speaking on the Off Menu podcast, the 35 year old soprano said the reason she likes vegetables so much now might be because she is trying to make up for the fact she never had any as a child.
She said: “My nana used to cut the potatoes into chips and then leave then in water and all the starch would come out.
“And then as a kid I was so vegetable deficient that I just used to eat the raw potatoes.”
Podcast host and comedian Ed Gamble asked: “Do you think that’s why now you are so in to vegetables? That you’re just trying to make up for the fact you never had any as a kid?”
Church - who was raised by her mother Charlotte Reed after her father Stephen walked out on the family, before being adopted by her mother’s second husband James Church - replied: “Potentially – I am making up for lost nutrition.”
Her musical break came in 1997 at the age of 11 when she sang Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Pie Jesu' over the telephone on the television show This Morning in 1997. She then appeared on ITV's Big, Big Talent Show.
A request to sing 'Pie Jesu' at Rupert Murdoch's 1999 wedding led to concerts at Cardiff Arms Park and the Royal Albert Hall.
Church also received a vocal scholarship to Howell's School Llandaff in Cardiff, where she started in 1998.
