Charlotte Church appears on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories tonight (Thursday, February 17) – but how did she become famous, and what’s she up to now?
The singer has certainly led an extraordinary life.
Here’s everything you need to know about the star…
Who is Charlotte Church?
Charlotte Church is a singer, actress and TV personality.
Read more: Who is Mushroom on The Masked Singer? Clues, theories and judges’ guesses here!
She was born in 1986 as Charlotte Maria Reed, in Llandaff, Cardiff.
Charlotte is 35 years old.
How did Charlotte Church get famous?
There’s no doubt, Charlotte came from nowhere to become a household name.
And she started at a very young age.
In 1997 – when she was 11 – she called into This Morning and sang Pie Jesu from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Requiem.
She made such an impression, Charlotte was invited onto Jonathan Ross’s Big Big Talent Show the next week.
She was supposed to introduce her aunt Caroline Cooper but Jonathan, after being told she had a great voice too, asked Charlotte to sing something.
It was then she became a star overnight.
Soon, she was singing with Dame Shirley Bassey, had her own gig at Cardiff Arms Park and even sang at media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s wedding to Wendy Deng.
In 1998, she released her first album – Voice of An Angel – which went double platinum in just a month.
However, on a return to This Morning in 2019, Charlotte and mum Maria told Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby that her early fame tore the family apart.
Maria revealed that she had a nervous breakdown when she left home, and the two were estranged for a short time.
Charlotte also revealed that there were kidnap plots around the time of her early fame.
Can Charlotte still sing?
Very much so.
Throughout the years – and as she grew up – her singing changed from operatic to classical to rock and contemporary.
Her last solo album was 2010’s Back To Scratch, but only last week she was revealed as Mushroom on The Masked Singer.
After she was unveiled, Charlotte said: “I took on the challenge because 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.”
Can Charlotte do accents?
If anyone watched The Masked Singer it confirmed that Charlotte is a dab hand at accents.
While dressed as Mushroom, she concealed her own accent by speaking with a northern English accent.
Away from The Masked Singer, Charlotte is a proud Welshwoman.
But in 2005 she was warned by compatriot and Hollywood A-lister Catherine Zeta-Jones to change her accent in order to make it in Hollywood.
In an interview, Catherine said: “She’s going to have to have to disguise her accent because there aren’t many movies for Welsh lasses.
“That was one of my biggest problems when I first started.”
View this post on Instagram
Who is Charlotte Church married to?
Charlotte has had a well-documented love life over the years, culminating in her involvement in the News Of The World phone-hacking scandal.
As a result of the Leveson Enquiry, she was awarded £600,000 by the newspaper in damages in 2012.
In 2005, she started dating Welsh rugby star Gavin Henson. Although the couple split up six weeks after they got engaged, they had two children together – daughter Ruby (now 14), and son Dexter (now 13).
After splitting from Gavin in 2010, she dated musician, Johnny Powell.
In October 2017, they secretly married in Cardiff.
She gave birth to a second daughter – Frida – in 2020, but revealed that she suffered a devastating miscarriage three years earlier.
Are Charlotte’s parents still married?
Charlotte’s biological parents – Stephen and Maria Reed – separated when she was only two years old.
Stephen went on to marry Alison, who he stayed married to for 33 years.
But Stephen and Charlotte remained estranged, and in 2008 Stephen made a plea to his daughter for reconciliation.
However, Charlotte rebutted his request and in 2014 told The Guardian: “I have no memory of the separation or of my birth father and I have no will to get in touch either.”
Sadly, Stephen died aged 56 in February 2021 from Covid 19.
When Stephen and Maria separated, Maria went on to marry James Church, whose surname she took.
However, during the Channel 4 documentary, Charlotte Church: My Family and Me in 2019, she revealed that James was suffering from a terminal illness.
In the documentary, she said: “It’s absolutely terrifying the idea of not having him around.
“I rely on him for so much, he’s my buddy, my absolute best friend and has been for years.”
In 2019 – during another This Morning appearance – Maria revealed that he was still receiving chemotherapy and is battling through it.
Charlotte added: “It’s a really tricky disease.
“It’s quite rare, not a lot of people know about it so I do always try and bring a bit of awareness to what he’s going through but he is just absolutely wonderful and miraculous and has a serious will to survive and a fighting spirit.
“So he is willing himself on and doing marvellously, living life to the full.”
View this post on Instagram
What’s Charlotte Church doing now?
In 2019, Charlotte revealed that she had opened a school in the annex of her south Wales home.
Called The Awen Project, it was a controversial undertaking that met with resistance from her then neighbours.
On its website, Charlotte says she tried, “to create a model of education that’s sustainable, adaptable and personalised.
“We believe that this education should be free and accessible.
“That is why the school that The Awen Project creates will be possible to replicate around the world, not for our profit but for the profit of the next generations.”
She’s also starring in her own TV show – Charlotte Church’s Dream Build – on the Really channel.
In it, she renovates her new home – the former residence of legendary fashion designer Laura Ashley.
She admitted in episode one: “If we don’t get it done by the start of June I’m up [bleep] creek without a paddle! I’m in a lot of trouble.”
How rich is Charlotte?
The website Celebrity Net Worth claims that Charlotte is worth around £5.8million.
However, this is a far cry from her early career, where she earned tens of millions of pounds.
Read more: Charlotte Church baby: Singer confirms she has given birth after Holly Willoughby blunder
And now? She recently joined celebrity messaging website Cameo, charging fans £102 for personalised videos.
She said: “I will have to work for the rest of my life.
“Not because I want to but because I have to.
“I always understood that all that stuff isn’t important and my career was not the be-all and end-all.”
Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think of this story.