Charlotte Church says being a popstar was her worst ever job: ‘I felt like a thing to be sold’

Charlotte Church has called being a famous singer her worst ever job.

The Welsh singer found fame as a child for her classical performances, but later in her career restyled herself as a popstar and had huge success commercially in both styles.

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But now, mum-of-three Church, 36, has admitted that chart success wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

In an interview with The Guardian, she was asked: "What is the worst job you've done?"

Church gave the surprising answer: "It was a double-edged sword, but being a major-label artist, I felt like a commodity, a thing to be sold."

More recently, Church has shunned the limelight in favour of spending more time in nature at her home in South Wales and has been planning an eco wellness retreat.

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She appeared on the most recent series of The Masked Singer as Mushroom in a rare singing performance, but asked whether she would choose fame or anonymity, Church answered "fame".

Asked about when she had been the happiest in life, Church answered: "In the first lockdown. Obviously, there was terrible grief and sadness and fear around, but there was also this reclaiming for nature. I was constantly at my allotment with the big kids and my husband."

Earlier this year, Church featured in Kate Garraway's Life Stories, where she detailed how the constant press attention she received in her teens and early 20s had affected her.

Hinting again at how tough she had found the tabloid intrusion, when Church was asked what her most embarrassing moment was she answered: "Probably one of the numerous times that The Sun tried to shame me for something I didn’t do."

In her Life Stories interview, Church also addressed having moved out of home at 16 and why she briefly cut ties with her mother, Maria.

She said: "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."

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