Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton - ‘We were young and working-class. We were dismissed.’

Natasha Hamilton was 16 when she signed a record deal with the girl band, Atomic Kitten. The group went on to sell over 10 million records and achieve three UK Number One singles including Whole Again and The Tide Is High. But the pressures of fame affected her mental health and made her feel isolated and judged. After five years and the birth of her first son, Hamilton quit the band. Today, Hamilton tells that story - the one that existed behind the headlines. We talk about the toxicity of 90s and early Y2K media, surviving postnatal depression and financial catastrophe after divorce. Plus we talk about why she set up her own record label, Morpho, to focus on nurturing and empowering young talent rather than - as she puts it - ‘moulding them into a product’. An amazing woman whose resilience should be an inspiration to us all! Natasha Hamilton’s new single Fantasy is out now. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Introduction 03:15 Forties And Clarity 04:47 Writing Numb 06:03 Morpho Records And Duty Of Care 08:11 Bullied But Born To Sing 14:13 Fame Tabloids And Numbness 21:40 Whole Again And Industry Bias 29:37 Making Peace With The Band 31:17 Rebuilding Sisterhood Again 31:37 Losing Pop Star Identity 32:43 Shock Pregnancy And Isolation 35:17 Postnatal Breakdown And Help 38:12 CBT And Taking Control 40:40 New Career In Beauty 46:00 Divorce Money Chaos And Recovery 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: From the age of 16 I was constantly told who to be: what to do, how to look, how to act - I’d never been given the reins of my own life before. There is no wrong decision, if it works it works. I thought: everyone’s judging me for not being thin enough. Fame was so isolating. If you’re struggling - talk to someone. It’s incredible what can happen when you back yourself. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Natasha Hamilton’s new single, Numb, is out now If you need someone to talk to, the Samaritans are available 24 hours a day: www.samaritans.org or call on 116 123 Join the How To Fail community: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: www.theelizabethday.substack.com 📚 WANT MORE? Vicky Pattison - on Geordie Shore, self-worth, PMDD and family addiction: swap.fm/l/kUiBIHEkL1y3C9moLdsx Louise Thompson - on how severe trauma after childbirth, chronic illness and the loss of her former identity forced her to rebuild her life with self-compassion: swap.fm/l/LouiseThompson 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Elizabeth and Natasha answer listener questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] _________________________________________________________________________ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You know, I've got an 11-year-old daughter, a 15-year-old son. And you just think, how do people be that mean? When I went through my divorce, I didn't even have the login details to my online banking. It took me seven years to financially recover after my divorce. Sometimes I do look back and think, God, in a previous life, I must have been a pain in the ass.

• 0:27Elizabeth Day?

  Welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that believes all failure is an opportunity to grow. Just a heads up that this episode contains descriptions of depression and self-harm. Before we get into this conversation, please do subscribe and follow so that you never miss a single episode of How to Fail.

• 0:50Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's Exposure and Response Prevention.

• 1:28Elizabeth Day?

  And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable so you can live more of the life you want to live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. Confession time. I have a tendency to postpone certain decisions for far longer than is sensible. Not the big life decisions, oddly enough, those I can usually handle. It's the smaller ones that somehow become disproportionately complicated. For me, rugs fall squarely into that category. I've known for a long time that a rug can completely change how a room

• 2:10Elizabeth Day?

  Feels, but I've always found sizing for a space tricky. That's why Ernesta appealed to me. Ernesta makes designer quality rugs custom cut to the exact dimensions of your space. So instead of making do with something that's close enough, you're choosing something made specifically for your home. I also love the fact that you can order five oversized 12 by 12 samples for just $10 before committing. And Ernesta's design team will help with sizing completely free of charge. Visit ernesta.com and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 towards any rug of your choice. That's ernesta.com.

• 2:50Elizabeth Day?

  Natasha Hamilton was 16 when she signed a record deal that would change her life forever. Until that point, she'd grown up in Liverpool, attending local schools where she was bullied for her mixed-race heritage and red hair. She found refuge in singing and performing from the age of 12. And then in 1999, she was recruited to join the girl band Atomic Kitten alongside Liz McLaren and Kerry Katona, who was later replaced by Jenny Frost. The group went on to sell over 10 million records and achieved three UK number one singles, including Hole Again and The Tide Is High.

• 3:32Elizabeth Day?

  After five years and the birth of her first son, Hamilton quit the band until they were reformed in 2012. Hamilton, now a 43-year-old mother of five, has since 2024 been concentrating on her solo projects, including setting up her own record label, Morpho, which focuses on nurturing and empowering young talent, rather than, as she puts it, molding them into a product. She's also been releasing new music. Her latest single, Numb, has just been released and is a total bop. But there is a darkness underneath the electro-pop beats, which speaks perhaps of Hamilton finally having found her own voice

• 4:17Elizabeth Day?

  some 25 years after Hole Again reached the top of the charts. Hamilton says, "It's the most honest work I've ever made. There's a rawness to it, but also a clarity and strength that comes from everything I've lived through."

• 4:35Elizabeth Day?

  Natasha Hamilton, welcome to How To Fail.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Wow, what an intro.

• 4:40Elizabeth Day?

  What a woman. It's so lovely to be sitting here opposite you. First of all, thank you for the music. Thank you for those years that you gave us with Atomic Kitten and for what you're now delivering. Like, it is so needed in our culture.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Thank you. You know, you say that, I get goosebumps because it never, ever fails to resonate how much that music means to other people.

• 5:05Elizabeth Day?

  I refuse to believe that Hole Again is 25 years old. How dare it be that old?

• 5:13Speaker 00

  It's crazy. It's like it happened in the blink of an eye, but also I've lived many lives in that 25 years.

• 5:20Elizabeth Day?

  So, talk to me about your 40s. So, we are both in our 40s now. How are you finding it as a decade?

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Great. I wasn't looking forward to it. I don't know. I feel like that the turn of being 40 felt quite dramatic and uncomfortable, actually. I wasn't looking forward to it at all. I don't know why. I mean, I was leaving behind a lot of sadness, really, but also a lot of greatness because I'd just started

• 5:51Speaker 00

  living in a really comfortable part of my life and, I don't know, maybe a new decade. I was like, oh, please stay, stay, like, I hope everything stays well. But with age comes just a lot of clarity about the life you want to live, the person you want to be, about not really caring about the noise that can surround you, especially in the industry that I'm in.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  I spent a lot of years, like, doubting, you know, is this the right direction? Am I good enough? What will people think?

• 6:28Speaker 00

  And actually, Turn Four, he was a great marker for me because it was like, none of that matters.

• 6:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Like, this is the decade to be unapologetically me. And enjoy life, enjoy my career, enjoy my creativity.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  And what life can be if you live without fear.

• 6:50Elizabeth Day?

  That is so powerful. Tell me about your new single, Numb. Because is there an element that you felt numb through some of your fame, your previous fame? And you've sort of woken up in your 40s? Would that be accurate?

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Numb wasn't deliberate. So I ended up in a writing camp in Spain through chance. I was at my husband's charity event. I met a singer songwriter called Kyle. He was like, look, I've got this writing camp. I think you're great. I've listened to your music for years. Why don't you come out? So I just took a chance. I booked a flight to Alicante for three or four nights. And went to a writing camp where I didn't really know anybody. And it felt quite liberating. And from fear of making another wrong move or bringing another wrong person into my life,

• 7:45Speaker 00

  I'd cut myself off from feeling. And it wasn't until I was in this room, listening to music.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  And like, this song has to be called numb. This moment now, everything that happens beyond this is my rebirth. And it really empowered me.

• 8:07Elizabeth Day?

  Is part of the reason that you set up Morpho because you didn't want younger creative artists to go through some of what you went through with Atomic Kitten?

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think everyone around us at the time was doing the best that they could do in this machine that was just gaining traction. And Atomic Kitten was becoming bigger than what we ever thought it could have been. And I still speak to my old management. Like, they're still part of my life, you know, in a small part. And my old record label boss is almost like a mentor to me now. And I appreciate the position that they were in, whereas.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  We wear a product and everyone's got a job and we have to move forward. But on the flip side of that, there were parts of the life that we were living, where we needed support that we didn't get. And I don't know whose shoulders that was to fall on. Um, I think between management, record label and parents, everyone was trying to do the best with the tools that they had. But if there was practices in place that they'd learned or experienced from other bands pre Atomic Kitten. Cause let's be honest, we weren't the only band who were young and who struggled. I think there could have been things put in place that would have helped a lot. So with Morpho Records, that's what I'm doing.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  I'm setting up a label where first and foremost, it's duty of care. It's really what does that person want out of their mentorship? So for me, it's giving back, you know, before we take.

• 9:47Elizabeth Day?

  Let's get on to your first failure because as you put it, it's the end of Atomic Kitten. And I'd like to go back to the start of Atomic Kitten. Because I couldn't believe that you were 16 when you joined, until I did the research for this interview. So young, but you seem to have such a good head on your shoulders. When I look back at the footage, how did you feel aged 16 being part of this band?

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Truthfully, I was ready. I'd been singing since, oh, forever. You know, the first school play at the age of four, when we had to be a flower. You know, there's lots of kids scratching their heads and picking at the feet. And I was the beautiful flower, right? Really OTT in the middle of the room. And teacher saying, oh, Mrs. Hamilton, I think your daughter's got something special. So it was just always in me to perform and to, to want to sing. But I think as I got older, as you mentioned, the bullying started and being left out and, you know, being punched in the back.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Playing, playing games in the, in the school playground and being laughed at because I was in the school choir or I was playing the recorder and it was like my, my special gift was.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Brought a lot of negativity into my life. But the flip side of that was when I did sing and when I was on stage, people would be quiet. It was it was time away from all of that negative noise. I grew up in the inner city of Liverpool and it was brilliant. Like, I love my, I still call it my home. Like, I was, I grew up in a home full of love. My parents were amazing. But to step outside of that front door, it was brutal at times and it was harsh. And I had people picking on me and chasing me and fighting me and, you know, pulling my hair, jumping on my back and beating me up.

• 11:56Elizabeth Day?

  Sorry.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  You know, this is kind of what it's like to live in in an inner city. Um, also being a ginger kid, wearing braces, having a mixed race father in a predominantly white area, all of these layers of, oh, my God, she's the perfect target for us to bully her. So when I joined the Starlight Show Group at twelve, which was a group of kids going round pubs, clubs, theatres, anywhere, anything, anywhere with a stage or a space that we could make a stage. Um, that took me away from the streets. Every week I entered, I was busy. I used to love coming home on a Friday and getting my outfits ready.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  And my dad used to taught me how to iron, like with a, you know, a pillowcase and damp it down so you don't burn anything. And it was this pride that I had for all these items because we didn't have a lot of money, but my mum would save up every last penny to get me like beautiful dresses to wear on stage. So from twelve to leaving school at fifteen, I'd done thousands of shows. And I went from being a twelve year old little kid with this young voice to a fifteen year old with this powerhouse vocal where people, instead of drinking the pint and smoking the fag and chatting, you know, from three years previous, they'd put their drink down and turn around, watch and clap at the end.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  So I knew, I was like, I've got something here that could get me out, could get me on a cruise ship, travel in the world. Wow, how amazing would that be? So. By the time the Atomic Kitten audition happened, I'd done so many auditions. My mum had driven me all round the country, bless her. And she saw the audition, I was at college and I came home. She said, I've got you an audition for a girl band with Attitude. And I was like, okay, I can, I can work with that.

• 13:56Elizabeth Day?

  When you joined the band, I know you became firm friends afterwards, but Kerry Katona, you didn't get on.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  We clashed.

• 14:04Elizabeth Day?

  You clashed. Was that intimidating or because of everything you'd been through to get there? Did you feel this inner confidence that it was all going to be okay?

• 14:13Speaker 00

  I wouldn't say intimidating, but I was definitely upset because coming into Atomic Kitten, having Andy McClosky and Stuart Kershaw back at OMD, being in the rehearsal space there, the studios that they owned, listening to the songs. For me, I knew, like at that age, I was like, this is the one. This is the ticket out.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  So to clash almost instantly with Kerry. And I was just being myself. I was trying to suggest dance moves and I just wanted to come as a team player. But I think that was seen as being too bossy or, you know, I hadn't quite earned my place to be suggesting what the girls should do. But when you grow up, you know, in the situations that I had, you have to kind of have a confidence and maybe a bit of bravado. And I'd done it for years. It wasn't my first rodeo. I, yeah, I think I just overstepped the mark a little bit and Kerry didn't like it.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  And she did go back to the studio and say, I don't like her and if she stays, I'm leaving. And they told me that. They were like, what happened at the flat? And I was like, what do you mean? And they're like, Kerry, Kerry said she doesn't want to work with you. And I just burst out crying. I was like, I really don't know. I was just trying to be helpful. Anyway, they just said, well.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  You you stay, you you best get on. And it it was difficult because Carrie and Liz lived in a flat together for like, I think eighteen months before I even turned up. So they had a really close bond. And yeah, they had to let me in and I had to in my way in. And it took a little while. It was a bit frosty to begin with, but I was a tough cookie at that point. So I was gonna try and make it work every way I could.

• 16:14Elizabeth Day?

  And you did make it work as a band.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:17Elizabeth Day?

  And I I am obsessed with talking to women who were in the public eye, who made it through that time.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  Oh, my god.

• 16:28Elizabeth Day?

  Of like, late nineties, early Y two K media retention, which is part of the reason I was so excited that you were coming on. Because I, as someone who was not in the public eye whatsoever, found that period of time difficult enough to handle.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:45Elizabeth Day?

  In terms of how I felt about myself, how I felt about my body. And I cannot imagine what it was like for someone like you who was famous. What do you remember of the tabloid attention when you did get famous?

• 17:00Speaker 00

  I remember starting the band and liking myself. I liked the way I looked. I I liked the fact that I was flat chested and, you know, and I was quite boyish, sporty. I think then when people start to highlight what is wrong with you, um, it's a really confusing place to be in. Because you're not really sure why people are saying these things. And all of a sudden, you go, oh, maybe that does need to change. Or you you feel it it is an attack on who you are. And I think.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  I was down the line, like, part of me, the naivety of it all was, I don't really give a shit. But the longer it went on, it does chip away and you do start to care. And it was always very apparent that, you know, Kerry was the beautiful, the bombshell, you know, things like that. And there's always a language used around how Kerry looked, which was not really ever used for me and Liz, I don't suppose. You know, and you kind of, you get used to that and then you do start to think, oh, maybe I'm not that, that pretty.

• 18:19Elizabeth Day?

  You are so beautiful and you were then, and I just need to state that as a fact for the record.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  I, I was a beautiful young girl, growing up in the public eye, but I think it does.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  I knew I'd get upset.

• 18:35Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, Natasha, I, I can't even imagine and I really, it's important to show these feelings, like, it really is.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  I'm upset, but I'm angry.

• 18:46Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  You know, I've got an 11-year-old daughter, a 15-year-old son. And you just think, how do people be that mean and disgusting about kids?

• 19:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  But it, it was what it was. We were fodder, fodder for the tabloids, fodder for the magazines.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  I don't know why it's still so raw.

• 19:18Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so sorry you went through that.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  It's okay. I'm actually, like, I'm fine. I think

• 19:27Speaker 00

  there's a lot of pain that gets boxed up. And occasionally when you open it, it's, oh, it pinches.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Because there were times when I'd cry in bed. And there were times when I was just in a hotel room on my own with no parents, no friends. And feeling really vulnerable.

• 19:49Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  Um scared. Not good enough. But then you have to open that door the next day and be like, hey, I'm Natasha from Atomic Kitten.

• 19:59Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  I I feel pain, not just for myself, for all the young people back then who you had to be dragged through the media like that.

• 20:09Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  Um it it was tough times and I'm probably more sensitive to it now because I'm a woman and.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  Ah like it's it's it's unfair.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Back then, I think I had to really toughen myself up to it. I had to just.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Be tough and you you have to tap out a little bit. And it's that numbness feeling, you're not feeling, you're going through the motions, you're doing things.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  That half the time you don't wanna do. Or you you're in a public space and in the back of your head, you're thinking, oh, my God, everyone's looking at me and. How thin I am or they they're judging me or like I don't look nice and. It's just a a level of scrutiny on top of the pressure of being famous that um. Is difficult, it is difficult.

• 21:06Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you so much for opening up about that.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  I don't know why I get so emotional over that.

• 21:11Elizabeth Day?

  Like I I I totally understand why you get so emotional and if it helps. Any woman I've ever spoken to who's had a similar experience to yours has done the same.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:24Elizabeth Day?

  And I think.

• 21:26Elizabeth Day?

  Potentially, it's because you were so busy and working and booked at the time.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:31Elizabeth Day?

  And it was a different era in terms of mental health that you were never given the opportunity to process.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  No.

• 21:38Elizabeth Day?

  And it and it also strikes me, Natasha, that so much of what you've done in the last couple of years is about parenting.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  And healing, I think.

• 21:48Elizabeth Day?

  And healing and parenting your own children, parenting young artists, but also parenting yourself as you were then.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:57Elizabeth Day?

  And there's something so beautiful and powerful about that.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 22:00Elizabeth Day?

  You've turned your pain into that kind of purpose.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was just so lonely and so isolating. And if there was someone I could pick the phone up to and say, okay, this is what's happened today, and as you say, process it in real time, instead of putting a lid on it and pushing it down deep for decades.

• 22:19Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  And sometimes you just say it, but you're not reliving it. And I think it's in situations like this where my whole, my whole being is reliving it. It's, whoa, like, that really was upsetting. And I just think, God, like, if that was one of my own, I do, like, my mum and dad must have got a lot of grey hairs from basically sitting at home, having to watch from afar what their teenage daughter was doing and going through via the media.

• 22:56Elizabeth Day?

  Could you talk to your bandmates? I'm sure you could, but was it difficult because they were teenagers too?

• 23:03Speaker 00

  It was spoken about, but probably more like in a sense of cheeky fucks.

• 23:09Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  You know, kind of a bit more bravado to it. But were we confined into our deepest, darkest secrets with each other? No, not really. But, you know, we're talking 25, 26, whatever, years ago. That wasn't the thing that we did. We didn't really know that we could do that. I think the least we spoke about it and the more we buried it, the easier it was just to crack on and get through another day.

• 23:43Elizabeth Day?

  Given everything that you went through and then Kerry left the band and was replaced by Jenny Frost and then you got Hole Again to number one. What did that feel like?

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Unbelievable. Did we think in a million years that Hole Again would go to number one after re-releasing the album, bearing in mind we released it the first time round, it flopped. I think it went to 39 in the charts and left the following week. Then a member left and we had to scramble around quite ferociously to find someone and get Jen. And that's why a lot of the, all the TV performances of Hole Again with Jenny are live, because all we had was Kerry on the track, which I loved. I was like, yeah, we get to see live. We knew it was gonna do well, but when I say gonna do well, we were hopeful for top

• 24:39Speaker 00

  10, but we were going up against you two at the time. Like, they just absolutely annihilated everyone. So to get that phone call, I'll never forget, I was in the Regent's Plaza Hotel in May Vale, that's what it was called then. I lived there for like two years. And my manager was like, mm, it didn't do as we expected. And I was like, oh, like in bed in my PJs. We're bloody number one! And I'm like, ah! Like jumping on the bed, fell on the floor. Then I put the phone down and next door was Liz and then I can hear Liz screaming and we had an interconnected door.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  So we opened the door, so we just threw ourselves. So we were like, what? Honestly, the whole week is a blur. It is, it is an absolute blur of promo.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Like every day it was sales up, up, up, up, up. We, we, we annihilated you two.

• 25:41Elizabeth Day?

  And I loved the T-shirt you wore at the time, which was you two, just another Irish boy band.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  So cheeky.

• 25:47Elizabeth Day?

  It was so funny.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  So cheeky.

• 25:49Elizabeth Day?

  Have you ever met Bono?

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Yes. So we'd, we'd had a few impromptu meets and drinks with Bono, actually, leading up to that. Hence why I thought, oh, he'll, he'll be able to take it. And that was at the NME Awards. But then Jenny called him over and said, oh, you need to look at Natasha's T-shirt. And I had a jacket on and I was like, and he was like, show, show me a T-shirt. Terrible. Sorry. I'm so sorry to anyone who's Irish. And I showed him the T-shirt and he went, fair play. And when he collected his award that day, he said, um, something like, we've had our arses kicked by pop. Well done, girls.

• 26:33Elizabeth Day?

  There's so much, uh, that is sort of dismissive in the narrative around girl bands because it's young women. But there was an additional dismissal, I think, with Atomic Kitten because you were working class. How much did you feel that at the time?

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Um, I think our naivety and our youth and not really knowing a lot about politics and how people were treated differently, especially if they were northern and had a Scouse accent. We were fearless. I'm glad we didn't really know much about that or pay much attention to it. But looking back and hearing other people's stories, like management and label and the stories they've told me, I'm like, oh, we weren't really.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, we weren't, we weren't aware in that moment because.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  We just wanted to be successful and I'm glad it was kept away from us. But when you think that Atomic Kitten in the midweeks were outselling U2 two to one, yet no one would play our song on radio. We were so dismissed and it was only when it hit number one on the Sunday that they had to play it because obviously it's in the charts. And every week thereafter, our sales went up. So on week two of number one, we increased sales every week for four weeks. The only person to do that previous to us was Michael Jackson.

• 28:06Elizabeth Day?

  But that's very interesting that you weren't being played on the radio. So it was literally like your live appearances were, your performances were driving the sales.

• 28:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:14Elizabeth Day?

  That's very impressive.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I can remember doing certain radio shows with male presenters. And we'd be like, we don't really want to do it because we're basically sitting ducks with, with a man who's more eloquent and intelligent than what we were at our age, just taking the piss. And I, you know, that infuriates me now because I'm like, why, why did we have to do that? But it was, well, you have to. There were certain panel shows that, you know, I was asked to do and I'd be crying to management saying, I don't want to do that because it is just a load of men going to take the piss out of me. And why would I want that?

• 28:57Speaker 00

  And I was being asked to do that show when I was actually diagnosed with postnatal depression.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  But, you know, it's, it's the biggest show on TV. Oh, well, I don't want to do it.

• 29:09Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, which panel show?

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Buzzcocks.

• 29:14Elizabeth Day?

  Right.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's that humour where.

• 29:17Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  They take the piss, but when you've got postnatal depression and you're vulnerable. That's not gonna go down very well.

• 29:27Elizabeth Day?

  You poor thing, that is so much. You mentioned the postnatal depression, so you gave birth to your first baby boy. And the doctor said, you need six to 12 months off. And they gave you six weeks, have I got that right?

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Two weeks.

• 29:45Elizabeth Day?

  Two weeks, it wasn't even two weeks.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:47Elizabeth Day?

  And then you were back on stage.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was really tough. Because even when I had two weeks off, I was not lay at home, chilling, watching This Morning. I like, I was, my nervous system was completely shot. And I couldn't relax, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't focus. And I had this immense pressure of, when are you coming back to work? When is, you know, if you're leaving, just tell us you're leaving. And it was just a constant.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  I don't know, I suppose at the time it felt like a threat.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  And in the end, instead of being threatened, I just made the decision myself to leave.

• 30:36Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, and is that the end of Atomic Kitten that you are quoting as a failure? Because there are various ends of Atomic Kitten in the band, so.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  No, I think when you've had such huge success at such a young age, and you walk away from that at the, at the peak. Like, we, another 12 months probably would have made us financially stable for a very long time. Coming off the back of this huge success and then having a whole year off. I've had my biggest, I've earned the most money I've earned ever, where I've just sat at home trying to heal for a year. And all of a sudden, I've got a tax bill. And I'm having to go back because I'm on my own with the kids and I'm the breadwinner.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  So I need to get back to work and I think it wasn't, I wasn't going back out of passion and love. It was fear.

• 31:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  And, oh my God, like, how can I ever do that again? How will I ever beat that? How can I? Fit back into a world that I didn't love anymore, but I needed to because I had a family to support. So the fear of failing and not being able or not wanting to really do that again. It was such a confusing time in my life.

• 32:01Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think you've recovered from that time even now? Do you think you've recovered from the end of Atomic Kitten?

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've made, I've definitely made peace with it. Um, like at the end of Atomic Kitten, I, me, me, Jen and Liz, I don't think we spoke. The odd text message, but we didn't speak or we weren't sisters the way we had been for, for a good while. It was heartbreaking.

• 32:28Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  They, they were my girls, they were my sisters, but.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  My decision to leave also made, ended their career. And they had to go off and do different things that maybe they weren't ready to do. I'm not sure. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But there was definitely a, a time where. There, there was that feeling of animosity and it, it didn't end well. And people didn't like me, I didn't like them. Um, it was just, it was hard to go from this tight knit bubble to just being at home. With my kids, not really even understanding the, how the real world worked.

• 33:15Elizabeth Day?

  And you were still only nineteen when you had your first baby.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Twenty with Josh.

• 33:19Elizabeth Day?

  Twenty.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:21Elizabeth Day?

  How are things now? Have you healed enough to have a friendship with your former bandmates?

• 33:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, God, yeah.

• 33:28Elizabeth Day?

  Yay.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, we've, we've moved, like, we've moved on, as they say, time is the greatest healer. And it's been a long time and we've reformed and we've done other bits and bobs together, which has been beautiful. But my career really did come to an abrupt hot halt. And that was something I'd worked hard for, like, that's all I ever wanted to do. Out of everyone, all the girls in the band, I'm the only one that wanted to be a pop star. Everyone else kind of fell into it. So to end on such a.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Dramatic and negative point. It it was heartbreaking.

• 34:09Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  It really was because I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a pop star. Until I didn't, really didn't want to be a pop star.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  I hated it. And to to fall out of love with the one thing you you always wanted to do. That's a bit of a head, you know what?

• 34:29Elizabeth Day?

  It's very tough because it leaves you without an identity, I imagine.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 34:35Elizabeth Day?

  That identity crisis leads us on to your second failure, which. Thank you. I want to preface this by saying thank you so much for talking about it because I don't think you've spoken about it before. And we're moving on a few years and it's after you had your daughter Ella at the age of thirty one. Would you mind telling us what happened?

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, so. I had Ella very quite soon into my relationship with her her father. Off the back of a a painful divorce. So I'm. Not in a great place, but I've met someone who I get on really well with. But I had a lot of health issues and was in and out of hospital with ruptured cysts. I previous to falling pregnant with Ella. So I'd had a lot of investigations going on. I'd been told by the doctors. Not going to be able to have kids no more. In my head. I don't need to go and get this coil put back in because even though I had one, I did have one.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  And I was trying to get it put in in a private clinic, never quite got there in time. In my mind, I'm like, oh, well, that's probably why I've had kids young. Giving it out to the universe. I'm blessed. I've got three. And then, yeah, I fell pregnant with Ella and it was massive shock. I've. Fell out with my family over it, like they were.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  They weren't happy and I'm very close to my family.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  So that was quite isolating.

• 36:17Elizabeth Day?

  Because they were worried about you.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, like. You know, I'm having a baby and I've I've come through a lot of hardship and a lot of mental health issues off the back of going through a divorce. So there's my support system, gone for a little while. We did make amends in the end and then obviously I'm having a child with someone I don't really know and we were good friends, but it was quite

• 36:47Speaker 00

  telling early on that things weren't great. But in my mind, I'd made the decision and like, I'm gonna do this with or without you kind of thing. I don't, I don't need your permission to to continue with this. I will carry on, but you know, Rich was there and we made the best out of the situation that we could. I think there was just a lot happening. My whole pregnancy was horrendous. I was ill, like violently ill for for weeks and weeks and weeks, stressed, anxious, depressed.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  And then after I had Ella,

• 37:26Speaker 00

  I, yeah, I started having dark thoughts. So I was cooking tea in the kitchen one day and I had a sharp knife. And a flash came through my mind of me cutting my wrists and it was quite joyous. I wasn't in pain, I was quite enjoying it. And it scared the hell out of me. It was

• 37:58Speaker 00

  a moment of what the hell was that? And I, I was very, um, I was taken back by it. It was, it was a lot.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  And I I shouted Rich and he came in and I told him and I was I was shaking from head to toe. And he helped get me to the hospital because at this point I was just having a complete meltdown. Um, and yeah, I was told I was having like a mental breakdown. I was under the care of the hospital um for quite a few weeks. I was treated at home. They did offer to have me at hospital and have Ella with me. Um, they had wards where women who were struggling after post-birth, they could stay and be treated with the baby there. But I was able to go home and have that treatment with Rich and my parents there every day.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  I was sedated for a couple of days just to sleep because leading up to that, what happened, that imagery. I hadn't slept, I'd I'd say for weeks. I used to get up in the morning, sit in the shower and cry because I was so exhausted from my mind.

• 39:12Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Just so tired, tired of life, tired of my brain, tired of not being able to sleep. Oh God, when I came out of that.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  I can remember just feeling, again, numb, a complete numbness on a level that I'd never felt before. But also, A, it was such a relief because everything I was feeling, I'd said. I didn't hide anything. I was scared that my children would be taken away from me because I was some kind of crazy lady who couldn't be trusted with the kids. But honestly, the mental health team at Chester Hospital were incredible, so supportive. But that for me was.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  The first time I'd said enough is enough.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Like, this is, this is rock bottom for me.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  And I just need to take one day at a time to figure out

• 40:14Speaker 00

  how to function again. And I was given eighteen weeks of intensive CBT therapy. That at first, I just thought, this is a load of nonsense. Um, I don't know why I thought that. Just maybe from how I'd grown up, the environment. So, you know, this is a load of woo woo or whatever. But I committed to it and it changed my life. It was really difficult at first because no one's telling you what you should think and how you should be and what the next step is. And that was the hardest thing for me. I was so used for someone telling me what to do. Managed, I'd been managed. I'd had a manager.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  From the age of sixteen, I was constantly told who to be, what to do, how to look, how to act.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  I'd never been given the reins of my own life before.

• 41:08Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so emotional hearing you talk about this. I can feel how terrifying it must have been.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  It was horrible because I was so scared to make the wrong decision.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  I was, but there is, what I've realised is there is no wrong decisions. All you can do is try. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And being able to let go of the reins and say, I don't know all the answers. And I don't know where life is going to lead me. But I have faith that everything's going to be okay.

• 41:44Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  I think a lot of things that happen in life make you lose faith.

• 41:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  But it's something I'm really trying to hold on to at the moment. Like eighteen weeks later, I cried my eyes out leaving that therapy room. The the woman who'd looked after me was like, that's it. And I said, can I stay in touch with you? And she said, no.

• 42:08Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  Said, we're not allowed.

• 42:11Elizabeth Day?

  That's sort of extraordinary, given what you just said about being managed. Like, here was someone who gave you back your agency. What do you think is the most important thing you learnt about yourself during those eighteen weeks?

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Like, I am capable of making my own decisions. And when you think you're thirty one years old and you haven't realised that yet, or had to. I just had to go through so much to have the realisation of I I am capable. And at the time, my sister, my younger sister, had just signed up to go to beauty college. She was on a new path and I thought, I think I'd like to do that. I know a lot about beauty. I've had every beauty treatment under the sun and. I'm quite, like, I am, I love, like, at school, I was a bit geeky. I was like a science girl, like, I love science, I was really good at it.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  And I love the fact that going back to college, I'd have to learn the anatomy of the body and learn the science behind what we were doing and take exams. So all of a sudden, I was like, I'm gonna do something for me. Like, I'm going to focus on something else. I don't want to just be living in this, oh, me, me, me. What else can I do to grow as a woman? So I signed up for a local beauties college course and I was terrified. I got my mum to drive me there. I got my mum to get out the car and walk into the college.

• 43:41Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, like, so I stayed at school, literally.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  I was like, can you just walk in and have a look and like, tell me if it, like, what's it like? She was like, oh, my god, Natasha. And I was like, please. I was, you know, I was quite raw and vulnerable, but I also knew that. I had to just be me and go, go out there and do these things to, to grow. That led to me going to London and studying at the International Institute of Anti Aging and becoming a skin specialist and opening my own clinic. And honestly, it's, it's incredible what can happen when you back yourself.

• 44:22Elizabeth Day?

  I'm in awe of you. I'm so admiring of you going through that process and ending up where you are. How old is Ella now? Twelve?

• 44:33Speaker 00

  She's eleven now.

• 44:33Elizabeth Day?

  Eleven. And what's your relationship like with Ella?

• 44:37Speaker 00

  Incredible. I mean, apparently I'm not as cool as what she used to think.

• 44:44Elizabeth Day?

  Happens to us all.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Sometimes I'm cool.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  But, um, we're super close. I just shot my next video, um, on Friday and she's in it. Not, she's not in it for the sake of being in it. There's a part of the lyrics of the song that refer to the celestial beings that I've created or that we create as women.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  And she has a role in the video and oh my God, that girl, the confidence. She is everything I wanted to be as a young girl and more. She is so articulate and confident in herself and in her. Don't get me wrong. She's been through it. She's a young girl navigating life at school and, and also having two famous parents, which is very difficult.

• 45:41Elizabeth Day?

  So her father is Richie Neville from Five?

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:43Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 45:44Speaker 00

  So instantly she's different to everyone else and she, she has come up a few, against a few things at school, which we just try and navigate with as much love as we can. And, you know, I tell her when I was a little girl, I got bullied and I was picked on and you've got to, some young kids maybe listening to what other people are saying and they don't really understand and it's your, it's up to you to tell them. You're just the same.

• 46:16Elizabeth Day?

  There are so many things I wish I'd known when I started this podcast and my production company, Daylight. Like, why am I spending hours trying to make a website look good? Why am I designing everything from scratch? And why am I spending all my time just doing admin? What I really needed was one place that could do all of this for me. Enter Shopify. Shopify has beautiful, ready-made templates that make your website look polished without needing to become a graphic designer overnight. Its AI tools can help you get your site up and running quickly, and Shopify Checkout makes it really easy for customers to actually go from, "Ooh, I like that," to, "Yes, I'll have one." If Shopify had existed when I started out, I could have saved myself a lot of time,

• 47:01Elizabeth Day?

  stress, and some rogue design choices. If you're ready to hear the

• 47:07Elizabeth Day?

  of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at Shopify.co.uk/fail. So many women will feel so seen by what you have just shared. Those women who are currently feeling terrified, isolated, alone, who are freaked out by their own thoughts, who are so fearful of putting their relationship with their baby at risk, they will take so much comfort from the fact that you have this wonderful relationship with Ella.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. All of, I think from that moment on, all of my relationships got a lot better. I mean, the kids were only, I mean Ella was a baby, but the kids were young, but like my older boys, they obviously saw mum, mummy struggling. I never tried to hide anything. I've always been very transparent and open. You know, they don't need to know every, at the time, they didn't need to know everything, but.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  What I would say is talk to someone. The worst thing that you can do is keep it all inside. And going back to my postnatal depression with Josh, I hid that for so long for the fear of people saying, oh, you're so ungrateful. You've got, you're a pop star, you're in one of the biggest bands in the country and you've got this money and you've got that. What have you got to be sad for? And what other people think of you is quite frankly, none of your business. It doesn't matter, but you can't keep all of them feelings locked in to yourself. Cause it only gets worse and worse.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  So if you can find the courage, just a little bit of courage to reach out to a family member, a friend, an older child, if they're older and just confined.

• 49:06Elizabeth Day?

  So well put.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:08Elizabeth Day?

  Your third and final failure is life after divorce. So you've mentioned it there in terms of the impact it had on your personal relationships. But this was a very specific experience to do with business, wasn't it?

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:28Elizabeth Day?

  Again, I'm so thrilled you're going to talk about it because I cannot tell you the amount of people who I know who will relate to this.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 49:36Elizabeth Day?

  So, and also the other person who spoke about this was Mel B.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 49:40Elizabeth Day?

  So you're in great company. So you went through a divorce and what happened financially afterwards?

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I was very much the face of the business and my husband, ex-husband, he was the finance. And not just that, not just for business, but for my own personal business. I mean.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Now I go, wow. But when I went through my divorce, I didn't even have the login details to my online banking.

• 50:11Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  Wow. Now where I am in my life now, I'm like, what?

• 50:16Elizabeth Day?

  And this is when you're in your late twenties, is that right?

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:21Elizabeth Day?

  And I imagine as well, you're used to other people being in control of the money.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  That to me, that made sense.

• 50:28Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  That was, that was totally normal for me. And I'm not saying I was in a relationship where he was like, I'm having these, these are not for you. I was happy just to go, you can deal with that while I'm in my box over here.

• 50:40Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  We built multiple businesses together, coffee shops, restaurants, bars, businesses I could sell in the future and help support me in the family, pension, whatever that may be. And, you know, it meant a lot to me. It was like, this is the first time I'm doing these businesses off my own back with my husband. After a tomahawk, I feel like I'm succeeding. This is great. And then the divorce happens and everything gets frozen and all of a sudden I'm thinking, well, where are my assets? Where are they? Because there was lots of them and now there's literally nothing.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Look, I can't, I can't tell you like what all of this was in a monetary value, but it was many years of my life.

• 51:30Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 00

  I'm talking five maybe years of working really hard every day. We're getting, you know, press coverage and you know, celebrities are hanging out in the club and you know, it's all, it's great. It's like, all of this is going to one day be my rainy day pot for me and the kids. And yeah, going through divorce, all of that just. Fell down or around me and I didn't have the access to what all these things were because I didn't have a bank account. I've never seen a book on any of the accounts. I it was like, where are all these things? Where does it exist?

• 52:15Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  I don't know, I can remember sitting at my, um, island in the house. Um, I just, like, a lot of bills had bounced and I'm like getting like these calls. And I'm like, I don't know what's going on and like all my accounts have been frozen. And I just remember phoning the bank crying, saying, I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do. I can't even log into my online banking. I don't know how to do it. Like, I'm going through a divorce and I need someone to help me. It was the worst free, like, I just felt like this free fall of chaos and anxiety. It was wild.

• 53:01Elizabeth Day?

  That's horrendous.

• 53:02Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 53:03Elizabeth Day?

  What, what happened? Did you, did you just, did, I mean, I don't want to be intrusive, but like, did your ex-husband take it all?

• 53:11Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't know what happened to this day. I went through a divorce with a clean break. After, it just got to a point where I thought, I can't put any more money into investigating what the hell has happened here. Because I'm a single parent with a family to support.

• 53:30Elizabeth Day?

  So you have to start again?

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. It took me seven years to financially recover after my divorce.

• 53:36Elizabeth Day?

  Good grief.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:39Elizabeth Day?

  I'm astonished and horrified. And so, again, in awe of what a survivor you are.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Hmm. I, I just, sometimes I do look back and think, God, in a previous life, I must have been a pain in the ass.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Because, you know, maybe one of these things isolators happens to someone in their lifetime, but it's like this chain of events that it was like this steam train coming at me through my life.

• 54:11Elizabeth Day?

  How did you build up your finances again? Was this through the skin clinic?

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Uh, working hard.

• 54:17Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  Taking every job. I always say I'm jack of all trades, master of none. I never stopped working. I I've learnt how to pivot and that's always fuelled from being a mum looking after her kids. Like, there's no time. I've always found, weirdly, and I've I've I've made, in recent years, I've made this stop.

• 54:40Speaker 00

  When my back is up against the wall, I can make shit happen. And I got to a point, I thought, actually, I just want to make shit happen without my back beating up against the wall.

• 54:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  But I think, God, if I can get through that, I can launch a record label.

• 54:55Elizabeth Day?

  Definitely. You've survived to one hundred percent of your worst days, your toughest challenges. You're still that kid in the streets in Liverpool, getting punched in the back and carrying on and performing your way through it. There's that resilience, that core of steel that is so impressive. And it's strength because of what you've been, because of all of the challenge.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:19Elizabeth Day?

  Like, the vulnerability you've shown is the strength.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I I do, yeah, I I do see that. I don't know, maybe this is me trying to make myself feel better about it, but I feel like I've I've just experienced so much that I want, I can give my kids a lot of insight and knowledge into life that I wasn't able to have growing up.

• 55:43Elizabeth Day?

  These days, so you're married again?

• 55:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, that that very much was then. I I met my husband ten years ago this year, so we're on our 10th year anniversary. I was thirty three. I actually went, like, so bearing in mind, six months, so eight months, eight months before I met my now husband, I was under the care of a mental health team in a really dark place. And then I met him and we courted, we old school courted because, one, he lived in London, two, I didn't trust myself.

• 56:20Speaker 00

  I was like, I can't rush into this because I've rushed into everything and look what's happened. And he helped me heal a lot because he, you know, he always says, the woman he met, when he met me, he was like, you're amazing. But I was also carrying a lot of hurt and pain. He was just fun. I could get away from life and just hang out and just, just be Tash. And, you know, he was a, he was, he had his own thing going on. He was successful. You know, he didn't need me for anything. He didn't have to manipulate or be jealous in any way. He was just like, I like you, you're cool. But I think I was

• 57:04Speaker 00

  so raw and honest. Within a, a month of knowing me, like my, I told him my whole life story. Because I just thought, oh, this is man, I can't be arsed getting six months in and going, oh, I've got something to tell you. The first night we met, I told him, like, I had four kids and I was living with my ex.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  And he was like, what do you mean? And I was like, well, I'm try, I'm, I'm looking for a house, but until I, until I get it, I'm living cohabiting with my ex. And he was just like, okay.

• 57:37Elizabeth Day?

  That's someone who's securing himself.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, he said, he's always said, there's never a dull moment with Natasha.

• 57:44Elizabeth Day?

  You have five kids. What's the age range?

• 57:47Speaker 00

  Um, so Josh is twenty-three, twenty-four this year. Then I've got Harry, who's twenty-one, Alfie, fifteen, Ella, eleven, and Kitty, who's two.

• 57:59Elizabeth Day?

  That is an astonishing achievement. Is it challenging parenting each different age group simultaneously?

• 58:09Speaker 00

  At the moment, I. Question myself more with my eldest because he's a man. And sometimes, you know, men go to their dads, they go to that male for support. So sometimes I feel like, oh, what can I offer to make, to help right now? Because he doesn't really like to confine to me. But he's got a beautiful partner. They're, yeah, they're, they're just this beautiful couple, quite old fashioned. They remind me of The Notebook. It's that old, whole, that wholesome love. Like, they're just super cute. I'm really close with her. So now I kind of find out what's, I'm like, hey, how are you? How's Josh? Which is quite nice, actually.

• 58:54Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  Because he's in the army, he's doing his thing. He's very career focused. Being a mum of a soldier's a whole nother.

• 59:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, that must be really emotional in so many ways.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  It's another thing, yeah.

• 59:07Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. Well, your eldest is a soldier and in so many ways, you fought so many battles throughout your life. And you've come out triumphant on the other side, Natasha Hamilton. I, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your openness and for trusting me. And I would love to end on one very, very important question.

• 59:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:30Elizabeth Day?

  Do you have the login details to your own bank account?

• 59:34Elizabeth Day?

  Because I don't want to be back here in three years' time.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  Yes, I can confirm I have access to my online banking. Thank you.

• 59:42Elizabeth Day?

  I'm thrilled to hear it. Listen, thank you so, so much for coming on How to Fail.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 59:53Elizabeth Day?

  Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.