Charlotte Church reveals why she had to 'cut ties' with her mum in 'Life Stories'

Charlotte Church has opened up on the circumstances that led her to cut ties with her mum as a teenager, saying she had to rebel to be able to have a normal life.

The Welsh singer had found fame as a child in classical singing and travelled the world, but when she was 16 she began hitting headlines for her boozy nights out and moved into her own apartment with friends, not speaking to her mum and stepdad for several months.

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Church, now 35, is close with mum Maria and stepdad James again, and as she discusses her teenage years in tonight's episode of Kate Garraway's Life Stories, Maria can be seen crying over the tough memories.

The singer tells Garraway: "Look, 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 was stifled and such and I felt I had to be this eternally young and innocent little girl and that's not literally where biological life was taking me.

"I just had to cut the ties."

Church, whose partying with friends as a teen often featured in the press at the time, is now a very private person.

She adds of her parents: "They were just trying to protect me, but I saw that as them holding me too tight.

"It's only with hindsight that I knew just what it meant to my mum. It felt like they completely lost me and also this whole life that we'd built together...that was all gone in an instant."

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Church continues: "I don't feel guilty because I don't believe in guilt as a worthwhile emotion. I feel sorry, particularly to my mum, knowing what it cost her."

In the ITV episode, which has been delayed by two weeks from its originally billed air date, she also shares that her grandmother used to plead with her to have nights in with friends at home or wear less skimpy outfits at the height of her fame.

Church says: "There was definitely no conscious rebellion. The only thing I rebelled against was celebrity.

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"My rebellion was I will be normal. I will have this life I'm supposed to have. This life of Charlotte in Cardiff with her friends.

"This whole showbiz nonsense is a facade, this is not my life...I will have my life, no matter what the papers say."

Kate Garraway's Life Stories featuring Charlotte Church airs tonight (Thursday) at 9pm on ITV and ITV Hub.

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