Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Entertainment
Ryan Paton

The Masked Singer Charlotte Church's aunt clue, mum's breakdown and famous ex

Charlotte Church thrilled fans with her powerful performances on the latest season of The Masked Singer.

The Welsh singing sensation was revealed to be the extraordinary voice behind the Mushroom costume in last week's Grand Final.

Charlotte brought viewers to tears with her spine-tingling rendition of The Flower Duet after she finished in the runner's up slot.

READ MORE: ITV The Masked Singer viewers in tears as Mushroom's identity unveiled

The 35-year-old took on the challenge as she felt it was the ideal time to return to the public eye.

She said: "I liked the idea of the show being entirely centred around the voice, and I haven't sung in the public eye for quite some time now so it felt like the perfect opportunity.

"Also, I really wanted to design my own costume as I thought this would be very exciting to do, and it really was."

Eagle-eyed viewers suspected Charlotte may have been the voice behind the costume as they deciphered Mushroom's final clue that they "once stole the show from their modryb".

Modryb is welsh for "aunt" and the hint alluded to Charlotte's big break, which came when she upstaged her auntie on the Big Big Talent Show in 1997.

Instead of simply introducing Caroline Cooper to the stage, Charlotte broke into song and wowed the audience with her rendition of Pie Jesus.

The opera singer was just 11 years old when she rose to fame and has remained in the public eye throughout her journey to adulthood.

She was interviewed by Kate Garraway on this week's Life Stories and revealed she ran away from home at the age of 16 after her mum, Maria, caught her smoking.

She said: "As far as I was concerned, I needed to be free. I had to be a specific way for a long time and all of the normal ways in which we grow and how puberty happens and how girls become women were stifled and I felt I had to be this eternally young, innocent, little girl. That's not where, literally, biological life was taking me.

"I just had to cut the ties. I was at an age where I knew everything, I knew better. I knew what I was doing. They were just trying to protect me but I saw that as them holding me too tight and so I just did what I felt I needed to do at the time."

Charlotte's mum suffered a nervous breakdown after the singer cut ties with the family.

She admitted: "I was very, very hurt because I tried to speak to her and she just didn't want to know.

"I felt loss, I felt isolated. I just totally shut down. I had a nervous breakdown. For months and months, I couldn't get out of bed. I was devastated,"

"When Charlotte left home, it was very, very brutal and very sudden, she broke my heart, I ended up having a nervous breakdown."

Charlotte has since reconnected with her mum.

Charlotte said: "It's only with hindsight that I knew just what it meant to my mum. It felt like they'd completely lost me and this whole life that we'd built together, this thing that we'd been doing together for the last four years, that was gone."

Charlotte's love life hit the headlines when she first started dating model and musician, Steve Johnson, in 2002.

She was next involved in an 18 month relationship with Kyle Johnson, who is not related to her first boyfriend. Years after the relationship ended, Johnson was jailed for 12-years for the possession of almost £10 million worth of heroin.

Charlotte began a long term relationship with Welsh rugby player Gavin Henson in 2005.

The couple had two children named Ruby and Dexter before they got engaged in 2010.

However, they released a statement just six weeks later to announce they had split.

It said: "Charlotte Church and Gavin Henson have confirmed reports of their separation and would like to stress that no third party was involved.

"They are trying their hardest to deal with this difficult time for both of them in a way which will minimise the impact on their two young children. They fully intend to work together and cooperate in ensuring there is as little disruption as possible to the children's lives."

Charlotte is now happily married to musician Jonathan Powell - and gave birth to daughter Frida in March 2021.

During her appearance on Life Stories, she revealed the home birth didn't quite go to plan.

She said: "The labour started to get really intense. I do have neighbours and I'm starting to make quite a lot of noise and then I was like "I'm screaming in the garden in the rain!

"I can hear golfers over there going 'fore!' and I'm like "aaargh!" So I thought maybe we should take it inside.

"I ended up in not such an idyllic setting but absolutely screaming my lungs out on the bathroom floor, which wasn't quite the birth I'd planned but very rarely do they go like we planned. But it's still sacred and amazing."

Receive newsletters with the latest news, sport and what's on updates from the Liverpool ECHO by signing up here

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.