Begin Again Moments: Daughters Becoming Mothers | Sophie Ellis-Bextor & Katie Piper

In this heartfelt episode of Begin Again Moments, we bring together two moving conversations about the powerful relationship between mothers and daughters, and how the way we are raised can shape the parents we become. Sophie Ellis-Bextor reflects on her close relationship with her mother, Janet Ellis, and the influence her childhood has had on the way she raises her own children. From growing up with a famous working mother to having a strong, grounded family around her, Sophie shares the lessons she has carried into motherhood and the importance of creating a safe place her children will always want to return to. Katie Piper then receives an emotional letter from her mother, Diane, reflecting on Katie's extraordinary journey through trauma and recovery, and the strength, resilience and compassion she now passes on to her own daughters. Katie shares how becoming a mother has allowed her to carry forward the greatest gifts her own mother gave her, while using the wisdom of everything she has lived through to shape the parent she wants to be. Together, these moments explore the invisible threads that pass from one generation to the next, the lessons we inherit, the love we carry forward, and the profound journey of daughters becoming mothers. To hear the full conversations, watch the complete episodes on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm fascinated by, obviously, I'd love to talk to you about you and Richard and your and your boys, but something that fascinates me personally is that you were the child of famous parents. I mean, your father, perhaps people might not have known him.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  No, yeah, he wasn't in the public.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  No, but he was famous within his own world. He was well known in his own world, but your mum was mega to famous, to like everybody. I remember your mum so clearly on the television. She was weekly, you know, she was in our living rooms weekly on Blue Peter, Janet, Megawoman. And then you have gone on to become a famous parent yourself. That is such a unique situation. There aren't that many women, I don't think, that have done that. And I'd be very, because it's been a real worry for me as a famous mother on how will this affect my children?

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  How can I keep them safe? How can I not, I mean, I spend, I spent a lot of time when I was younger, trying not to embarrass them. I don't care anymore.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  No, me neither.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Um, but, sorry kids.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Sorry kids, yeah, sorry about that.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  But I would love to hear your take because that's so unique, having Janet as a mum. What was life like being the child of a famous mother?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Right. Well firstly, I'd say, you know, objectively, us worrying is a bit pointless because whoever, whatever family you're born into, the family dynamic affects who you are. So it doesn't matter.

• 1:33Speaker 00

  Yes, you don't get away.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  With not being affected by your family dynamic. Oh, that's, yes, okay, yeah.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  So don't worry. It's like just how it works, isn't it? And.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Sorry. That's actually kind of brilliant. Like, if I was famous or not.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  The family.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Be free from that worry because your family dynamic is a hundred percent what affects you.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  You know, when you say that, you're like, oh my god, that is literally the first time I've thought about that.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  That is mega.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  God, thank you.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Well, no, not at all. And.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  That that it doesn't matter whether you're famous or not, or who you are, your family dynamic will be affected.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Oh, God.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  Well, I'm gonna be thinking about that tonight.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  That's brilliant. Thank you. Wow. Okay, yes.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Yes. Um, and also, I realised as soon as you started talking about my parents, I started smiling a lot because I'm very close to my parents. And uh with my mum, geographically, we live about ten minutes away from each other.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Oh, the dreamers. Because I really hope some of my kids do that with me, please.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  They will, they definitely.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  Or I'm going to them.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  No, I I reckon you're you have a similar vibe to with your kids. I bet this my mum had with me, which is like the same way. I'm gonna do it, by the way. Strong matriarch vibes of just like.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Stay close.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  In touch, keep communicating with each other, check in. It's so important. Um, so yes, I see my mum. Sometimes.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Uh, I'll be walking the kids to school and the bit of park we walk through, I'll see my mum walking her dog. So it's all it's all pretty wholesome. We see bump into grandma quite a lot.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Oh, and um. That's so nice.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yes, I love it. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I love that. And I think with my, oh, look, I mean, it would be. I can see that there must be some seeds that were sown from what my mum did that somehow worked into what I was gonna do, for sure.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  What was, what what sort of seeds?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Well, one of them's really embarrassing, but um, this is really not gonna.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Oh, this is great. I can't wait. No, go on, tell me.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Um, well, I would love to say it was all to do with work ethic, but I just remember when I was, I think it must have been my seventh birthday. And we went to Madame Tussauds. And because my mum was on Peter, we got to go straight in the front. And I think I was a bit like, that's pretty cool.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  And I do appreciate it does not pay. I was seven. That is like, that's like high currency when you're small. So that's probably a little, little seed there, isn't it? But I also.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Skipping to the front of the Madame Two Swords.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  How does this work?

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Think what my kids.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Sorry, how does that work?

• 4:15Speaker 00

  That is cool. What would your kids think was cool about you now? What have you done for them where they go, oh, this is ace?

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  It's quite an interesting. I'm trying to think of anything that I've done for my kids, which they would think was mega, because I don't take them to anything.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Because I would think at some point.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  It's been quite, I've been quite good.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Trips?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  A broad, like when you're doing gigs?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Yes. So last year, um, I got invited to sing for Mardi Gras, Bondi Beach in Sydney, like brilliant. And I'd been away a lot, a little bit already by that point in the year, February, and I took Jessie, who was then eight. And we were only there for four days and they flew us there, business class. And so Jessie gets on the plane before we've been taken off and he was pressing all the buttons. And he went, hold on a minute, was this expensive, these tickets? And I said, yes, Jessie, very. And he went, it's worth it.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I was like, oh no, how's he gonna, this is a long way down, isn't it? From like a business class flight to Australia. He was so happy. He was a great travelling companion. He was like Tom Hanks in Big when he's pressing all the buttons in the car, like woo.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Isn't it special when you've got five kids, you've got five boys and you can go away with one?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  Isn't that amazing?

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  There's not enough time in the year really to take them all away for, but I think as you get older and you, you aren't working non-stop.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  There's, I took one of my kids away on their own for a week last, uh, this year. Yeah, this year in April, Holly, my oldest.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  And it was a joy.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  That is really nice. I actually think, because my kids are still quite little, that is actually one of the biggest privileges of having such amazing support. Because I've got brilliant support with people who help me look after the kids when I'm working. But it also means I can sometimes do things with them one-on-one. And I actually think that is, that's invaluable, being able to do that if you've got, you know, lots of children. What were you talking about? My mum? So the other seeds, I mean, yeah, my mum absolutely loved what she did. So she. Adored presenting Blue Peter and Blue Peter was, it's very strange for me to even talk about it now because it's almost, I think of it like a sibling, which sounds really odd and maybe a little sad.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  No, you shared your life with it.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  I did, but particularly that bit of my childhood because my mum was presenting the show while she was a single mother. Um, so I would spend most of my time with her. I'd go to my dad every other weekend and she finished the show when she was having my brother. So this chapter, it was, it was like my, yeah, the sibling I had during that time when it was a lot of the time just me and her. And, and I think, yeah, I could see how much they love what they did. I liked the fact that it opened my eyes to having a job that wasn't a traditional job. So, um, when the opportunity came to go on tour with my band, um, my parents, even though it was a slightly different world to theirs in music, that suited me too because it felt like my thing, but I also didn't have any sort of

• 7:17Speaker 01

  dreamy world around it. I could see the sort of nuts and bolts of what I do.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  The reality of it.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Reality, exactly. And I think that's a privilege too, because it, it, it had been around me so I could think in those terms. And I am aware that, you know, it's funny because when you're young and starting out, uh, you don't want to think anything's been easier for you because it's hard for everybody when you go out. But looking back, I'm like, wow, I had so many aces in my pack in terms of, you know, growing up in London. Um, a time when people from record companies would go out and actually go and watch gigs and suddenly all these privileges on my doorstep. Yeah, absolutely. And, and the fact that my, this is actually probably the biggest one, because my parents worked in a similar field.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  They never, and not, my family haven't, they never became my fans, which sounds like a really odd statement.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  No, that's, yeah, that's interesting.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Really shift things and they never were starstruck by any element of anything I got up to, which meant I had such a solid home base, such a grounding.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  They didn't, it was lovely if I'd enjoyed the things I was getting up to, but really they always wanted to check in. How was I feeling about emotionally? How was, what was going on at home? How was my relationship at the time? Um, was everything in order for, you know, could I pay my rent? All those sorts of things. It was quite practical and emotionally led and not, you've sold how many units? You're going to this country? That was at the end of the conversation. So that was a benefit too.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  So interesting because I had never thought about that, that if you become famous, your parents sort of become fans and how nice it would be to have somebody.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  They can.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Or at least a bit starstruck, the whole thing.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Or it's unfamiliar, you know, they might not know.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  What they're entitled to.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  They're entitled to help you. So those things can, those things helped me for sure.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  And the, all the kind of

• 9:11Speaker 00

  things that I was saying about you at the beginning about being just down to earth and normal, I see you as kind of a humble, a humble superstar.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  No, but that's how I see you. Like you are really well known. Everybody knows who you are, but you are, you've got your feet on the ground and that now that makes real sense, you saying that. I am, I can completely understand that they would know exactly what you needed.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  And Janet would know, this is what I could have done with.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  I'm going to, let me give this to Sophie. Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  And she's still in that role now.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Is she?

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very, I'm lucky. I do have a lot of people that give me lots of support. So nothing I do is, is happening on its, on its own really, as support for my redirection, including Richard, of course.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Obviously we've just talked about becoming a mother and I know that you and your mum

• 10:11Speaker 00

  became very close really when you moved back home.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And my dad as well. He was a big part.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  But your mum has written you a letter.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I'm surprised.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  And I, if it's all right with you, I'm going to read it to you.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Are you okay?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  She would have hated to do that.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  So tell me why you're surprised.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Because my mum is just like traditional and strong and stoic and.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  You know, like, she's so loving, but she's like, you've just got to get on with it, dear. You know, you really have. And she's not gushy. She she wouldn't like to go on telly. I had to force her to be in my doc, you know. She's just, it's like a different generation and she's just not like that. And I wouldn't want her to be any other way. But she's very um private, you know.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Would it be fair to say that your relationship, you got closer later in life?

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Deeper.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, like all relationships, you know, like my childhood, she like, I always knew at the centre of my mum's life was us, us three. I was the middle child. And with my mum, she worked as a teacher, then she worked in waitrose, then she was a childminder, then she was a teaching assistant. And at the centre of my mum's life was our education and our stability. And she was the taxi and took us to every hobby, you know. But then, you know, I'm ashamed to say then in my teens, like, I really like raged against her. You know, I I was a difficult teen and I think she found it hard to make sense of that.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  And I think my trauma and that recovery like united us and we found each other. Well, we chose each other. Because you don't choose your mum, do you? But you have later in life, you know if it was a good relationship because you do fly home.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. God, in recovery, I chose my stepmom.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Okay, you ready?

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Oh, God, okay, all right.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  Dear Kate, I was looking through some photos of you the other day and it made me reflect on how far you've come since that dreadful day in March two thousand and eight.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  As a mother, it was heartbreaking to see you hurt, to see you so badly damaged and feeling so helpless in the face of your pain. But what stands out to me the most is the incredible strength you showed even in those early days. When everything seemed uncertain and the future looked so hard, you refused to let it define you. You turned a dreadful situation into an opportunity to grow and to become even stronger. It wasn't easy. There were setbacks, struggles and moments of doubt, but you kept going. And you conquered one challenge after another. You kept that sense of humour that you had as a child, and even in difficult times, you managed to make us all smile.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  You proved to me and to yourself that no matter what life throws at you, you have the power to take control and overcome. Over the years, I've had the privilege of watching you blossom. Your career's been a testament to your tireless work ethic and your stubborn determination. And in addition to your career, you started your charity because you wanted to give back and make a difference. I've watched you work so hard on that too. That's who you are, a person who not only overcomes adversity, but who is driven to help others do the same. And then I've watched you become a mother.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  To see you with your girls, teaching them the same values I taught you, strength, resilience, kindness and determination has been one of the greatest joys of my life. I can see the love, the patience and the wisdom in your interactions with them. You're passing down the very qualities that made you who you are today, and I am so proud of you.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  As a mother, there's nothing more rewarding than seeing your child grow into the person you always hoped they would be. Strong, compassionate and capable of navigating the ups and downs of life with grace and courage.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  I am so proud of everything you've accomplished and even prouder of the amazing woman, wife and mother you've become. I'm going to end this letter with the best piece of advice I have ever given you.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  Just get on with it, dear.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  With all my love, Mum.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  That's our private joke, just get on with it, dear. Said it in ICU.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's um.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  You can't go back and change things, but when you become a mum, you can you can give them everything. And I don't want to say everything I didn't have because I had everything. But the greatest gift my mum has given me is to be able to parent.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  And that's what I'm trying to do, parent them like she parented me.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  But with the wisdom of some of the other things that happened to me that I'll never be able to change. And I'm so private about my children, you know, I don't put them on social. I don't take them to work things. And I want them to have that agency and that anonymity to go out into the world and fuck everything up and and enjoy life and be who they want to be. And I want to keep them so safe.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  But not be like a helicopter mum, you know, I want them to

• 15:55Speaker 02

  choose me and and fly home to me, but go out there. And I don't know if mum knows this, but she did do that for me, even though we like butted heads quite a lot. But I was allowed to butt heads with her. Because I knew we'd never fall out.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  She's safe.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I hope I create that. I mean, I'm already there with my eldest where she's like, can you stop walking next to me on the street when we walk to school? I'm like, sorry. So sorry. Like I went to careers day on Monday for year six. And I was like, did a thirty minute talk about being a writer and a TV presenter. And I said, did you like it? And she was like, why did you wear the cardigan with feathers on?

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Because I'm jassy, I'm jassy.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  I touched the small of my son's back a couple of years ago. I've never touched him since. I was like, I'm really sorry I touched you.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  And it's hard because I'm not, I, in some ways I am the man my mum was, but in other ways I'm not because I, my mum dedicated her life to us and she sacrificed her career. And I'm not ashamed to say I don't, I don't sac, I sacrificed parts of my career, of course I do, but I am a career woman, which is different to what my mum was, you know. And she's had opinions on that too, and I understand that.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  But Richie's a good dad and we, we work together as a team, you know.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  But yeah, I'm, I'm so grateful to my mum and dad that they gave me all of this so that I could be who I am today. That's why all that I am is them, not what happened to me.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Yes. Absolutely. And this is the overriding message. I'm gonna end with me holding this book because everybody should get this book. No, honestly, Katie, I, I, I knew you a bit before and but I, I read this and I, I really know you. And I like you so much. Your message in this book is brilliant for everybody. And everyone in life should read this book.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  I feel like me and you have just run a marathon together with no refreshments. And I feel like kind of exhausted.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Weird, yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  But in a good way, I am happy exhausted. This is.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Well, I just love what you're doing because it, I don't know, could I have done this interview like 10 years ago and what, what would have been the platform? Like, I feel like I couldn't and, and I feel like what, what I can do here with you is say things um, that might have been like a secret, not a secret, but just, I just don't know if there was like the space for that, you know. A, and that you haven't, you know, you've, I've done interviews in the past with women and it, and, and it feels like they want to catch you out and it's accusation or, or this, that it's weird ownership and blame and I don't know, I just feel like what you're creating is really special.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Well, God, and I respect you so much. So coming from you, that's really a high praise and I, I thank you. Very, very, very much for that.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  It helps lots of people.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Katie, you help lots of people. Can we, can we just quickly mention your charity? Can we just, would you just mention it by name, just in case anybody's watching that might need a bit of help? We will obviously put a link to it as well, everywhere.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  So we're a national charity, the Katie Piper Foundation. We're there for anybody who's had traumatic scarring or a burn injury. We fund rehabilitation, scar management, psychological support, and we support partners and family as well as the survivor. And we always need people to do crazy things for us to raise money as well.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  And any volunteers? Do you ever need volunteers?

• 19:35Speaker 02

  We do. Yeah, it's about community. And that's the thing, as you've heard talking to me at length, it doesn't take just the survivor or one person to help somebody, any recovery, whatever it is, whether it's a burn.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Take the village.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  It takes a village and that's what we always need. So we're always grateful for anybody in any capacity.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Katie.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  I really.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Love you.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  I love you too.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Thank you for trusting me.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Coming here, I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna say. I don't know if I've got anything to say. What have I got to say compared to other guests? I was really worried. Isn't that like?

• 20:11Speaker 02

  And it's not just what you've said, it's, it's what we've learnt, what I've learnt.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  I've really enjoyed it. Is that weird? Is that a weird word to say, enjoyed it?

• 20:21Speaker 02

  I've enjoyed every second of it. It was amazing. Thank you.