Michael Bublé reckons he could have been a “bigger star” if he hadn’t become a father.
The 46-year-old singer has had huge success in the UK with a string of hits and has several sold-out tours, yet believes his music career could have reached even better heights without his children.
Bublé and his wife Luisana Lopilato, 35, share four kids Noah, nine, Elias, six, Vida, four, and baby Cielo, who arrived last month.
The Canadian crooner made the surprising statement as he spoke on That Gaby Roslin Podcast: “You can’t do both successfully. Relatively, you can have success, but I think one always suffers.
“It’s funny, if you talk to my manager, he’s a beautiful guy but he’s managed a lot of big careers, he’d say flat out, ‘If Bublé didn’t get married and have those kids he’d be a bigger star, easily, truthfully.’”
While Bublé hasn’t stopped working these past years since starting a family, he has had to slow down his professional commitments in order to concentrate more on being a dad.
The singer topped the UK Official Chart after releasing his 11th studio album Higher this year, however failed to find the same success elsewhere, peaking at Number 11 on the Dutch Album Top 100 and Number 43 in Italy.
Bublé believes this was down to his absence doing press in those countries, as he said: “Since I came to the UK to do that press it meant that on that trip I didn’t go to Holland or Italy, I had to make the choice, ‘OK where will I spend the time.’”
“And that probably wasn’t great for Italy, wasn’t great for the chart numbers in Italy, Holland could have been better, that’s kind of what I mean.
“My manager always says to me, ‘It isn’t tough to make the decisions kid, it’s tough to live with the consequences of those decisions, so can you live with the consequences of that Mike? If you put your family first it’s going to hurt our career in those countries, what do you think?’
“And, of course, for me it sucks as, of course, I’m telling you here that I’m thinking about it all the time and I’m sitting in bed thinking, ‘Oh damn.’”
Bublé married wife Luisana back in 2011 and revealed on-air that they were expecting their fourth child on Ryan Seacrest’s show in February.