Charlotte Church - ‘I was totally exploited. I was a commodity’

Charlotte Church is currently starring in the first ever series of BBC One’s Celebrity Traitors. But she first found global fame as the young classical singer with the voice of an angel. By 22, she had sold 10 million records and performed for popes, presidents and princes. The success came at a devastating personal cost - here, she tells us what really happened and how she found her way into what is arguably her most powerful iteration yet: her healing phase. This episode was recorded live in Bath earlier this year. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 06:33 Reconnecting with Nature 08:55 Psychedelic Experiences and Healing 10:31 Creative Struggles and Musical Journey 16:38 Reflections on the Music Industry 21:09 Family and Ambitions 21:33 Struggles with Patriarchy and Colonialism 22:30 The Symbolism of Tattoos 24:13 Understanding Patriarchy 29:57 Challenges in the Music Industry 31:28 Personal Identity 34:39 Embracing the Wild Woman Archetype 40:08 Balancing Fame and Personal Beliefs 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: There's no two ways about it: I was not looked after, I was not nurtured, I was just totally exploited. I was a commodity and the industry was incredibly razor sharp. What makes us advance, is suffering. I'm dreaming of a world where everybody can start to feel what balance truly feels like. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Charlotte is starring in Celebrity Traitors on BBC One Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content 📚 WANT MORE? Tom Daley - discusses overcoming perfectionism, anxiety, and the fear of failure. He also shares how failure shaped his resilience and coping strategies - like knitting! https://play.megaphone.fm/deiztbmwsrw-vz5by9ajtw Claudia Winkleman - talks hilariously about her dislike of perfectionism, her introversion, struggles with sleep and the challenges of living in the present. https://play.megaphone.fm/cszzpxoqqb6_jx2furt7ba Paloma Faith - reflects on her experiences with rejection and self‑judgment, struggling to conceive, and the tension between her public persona and inner vulnerabilities. https://play.megaphone.fm/rq-vrlg6sla2hyboi6znkq 💌 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 Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Elizabeth and Charlotte answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: howtofailpod.com Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Live Engineer: Will Kontargyris Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Sound Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile 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 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.

• 0:10Elizabeth Day?

  Welcome to this super special episode of How to Fail with Charlotte Church. This episode was recorded live from the forum in Bath.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  I was just totally exploited, like I was a commodity. I really don't give a fuck what a lot of people think. Oh God, somebody, I'm gonna get cancelled.

• 0:32Elizabeth Day?

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• 1:12Elizabeth Day?

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• 1:29Elizabeth Day?

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• 2:10Elizabeth Day?

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• 2:52Elizabeth Day?

  and TV, presenting her own chat show for Channel 4, earning her a British Comedy Award in 2006. Appearing in front of the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking as a victim of unscrupulous tabloid practices awakened Church politically. She went on to support Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party and has lent her voice to myriad causes, including Welsh independence and a free Palestine. She is also a mother of three children. And now, Charlotte Church has entered what is arguably her most powerful evolution yet: her healer phase, opening a wellness retreat in the Paris Valley. The dreaming aims to

• 3:36Elizabeth Day?

  reconnect people with community, nature and the healing power of sound and music. Singing, Church says, is humanity's most powerful tool for healing and connection. It transcends language and culture and has the ability to unite and uplift. Bath, please unite and uplift and welcome to the stage the one and only Charlotte Church.

• 4:13Elizabeth Day?

  It's so lovely to have you here. Thank you for being here with us.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be in Bath, so thank you.

• 4:19Elizabeth Day?

  I wondered if you can remember the first song that you ever sang?

• 4:24Speaker 01

  The first song that I ever sang was Ride On Time? Yeah! Yeah!

• 4:34Elizabeth Day?

  I love that!

• 4:36Speaker 01

  That one.

• 4:37Elizabeth Day?

  And it was just like that, wasn't it?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  When I was about three, on the dance floor, some family party, and I was on the dance floor, and apparently I was just like absolutely shredding, shredding that Ride On Time riff, and just having a ball.

• 4:56Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, I love that it wasn't a nursery rhyme or anything like that.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, because my mother said that the way she first knew that I had unusual musical ability was that when I'd come home from nursery, I knew all of the lyrics to all of the top 40.

• 5:11Elizabeth Day?

  Wow.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  So she'd be like, "What? This is bizarre." I just absolutely supped up all that music.

• 5:17Elizabeth Day?

  And obviously singing took you to some extraordinary and surreal places when you were a teenager.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:24Elizabeth Day?

  And I don't want to dwell too much on that because you are in this new evolution of self. But I wonder if you could just indulge me and tell me what one of the most bizarre experiences you had during that time was? I mean, I know you sat in one of your GCSEs in the White House.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was such an evolving mental, as you say, actually surreal is a really good word for it, just because I was having to adapt at such a rate. So like, on one day, I'd be in Japan, having to learn a Japanese song to do a commercial in a day. There was one trip where I went from the MTV Awards in America, so I was presenting an award with Wyclef Jean to Eminem. So I was just like, oh my god, I was 14, I was just like, oh my god, I'm just dying of embarrassment and excitement and all of it. But I was there with my mother, which was horrific. And then having to go from there early, which I was fuming about because then I had

• 6:23Speaker 01

  a gig in Geneva where I was singing in a really spooky castle for Henry Kissinger and John Major.

• 6:31Elizabeth Day?

  Oh my gosh.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Honestly, like my life has been such, such an insane tapestry of experiences. A lot, really, a lot for a young person to deal with, a lot for an adult to deal with, but a lot for a young person to deal with, but it is, it has given me quite a perspective on things.

• 6:53Elizabeth Day?

  Who was the kindest person you met that we might have heard of during that time? Who was really kind to you?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Weirdly, Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise was so sweet. So we, we met him, we were doing a big TV show in LA and we were told, Tom Cruise is coming in, he's signing a motorbike for charity, don't look at him, don't look at his face, don't look at his eyes, just leave him alone, don't even breathe around him, sort of thing. So we were like, all right, boom. And, and then he knocked on my dressing room door. He knocked on my dressing room door and he had his two kids with him and he was like, we listen to your record every night before bedtime, my kids love your music, you're so wonderful. My mother had just gone out for a cigarette, so she's behind Tom Cruise at the, at the,

• 7:40Speaker 01

  at the dressing room door, just like, introduce me to Tom, introduce me to Tom. But he, it was so, it was so obviously surreal back then as well. He was like, it was right at the height of all the Mission Impossible stuff. He was one of the biggest stars in the world. So to have then, you know, Tom Cruise knock on your dressing room door, it was, yeah, and it was just very, very sweet.

• 8:02Elizabeth Day?

  Did you introduce your mum to him?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  I did.

• 8:04Elizabeth Day?

  Thank goodness.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  I did. She was fine, she was happy as Larry though.

• 8:07Elizabeth Day?

  I, I want to get into your failures shortly because I, I said to you before we started, they're really good and they're really deep and I want to leave enough time for them. But before we do that, I want to talk to you a little bit about nature.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:20Elizabeth Day?

  Because obviously this, this new era that you're in is all about reconnection with nature, but that was not something that you necessarily grew up with, was it?

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:29Elizabeth Day?

  So can you tell me a little bit about growing up not being connected with nature and then how you came to realise it was important?

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  So I discussed this a lot in, I did a podcast with my family called Kicking Back With The Cardiffians and that is-

• 8:45Elizabeth Day?

  It's a great name.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that is really all about championing working class voices and stories. I think so often nowadays, all we get reflected back to us is the insane, you know, insanely wealthy lifestyles of the, of the rich and famous and the hyper wealthy and not really of our own experience. So, but in that, I talk a lot about what it is to grow up working class. And a lot of the time when you're working class in a city, nature just doesn't really factor and it certainly didn't for, for my lot. I mean, like going on a walk, like even going on a walk would be like, what? We go to the beach once a year and then through many different, you know, it wasn't a sort of light bulb moment.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  It was many different experiences over time, some of those being when I was travelling, when I was younger, seeing Niagara Falls and these incredible natural wonders that some of, some of which I got to see whilst I was travelling. And then having kids, quite young myself, I had my first baby when I was 21 and then starting to go, oh, don't, don't we mothers like go outside and stuff? Um, are we in parks and, you know, looking at birds and such? And so then just sort of like, oh, I think this is what we, we're supposed to do. To then having some psychedelic experiences and falling deeply, deeply in love with, with nature and really then starting to understand who I was in relation to nature because I

• 10:15Speaker 01

  think that so many of us are feeling that we are separate from nature and we're estranged somehow when really we are right at the centre, we're right at the beating heart, we are woven into the web of existence, which is nature.

• 10:29Elizabeth Day?

  I wanted to hear a bit more about the psychedelic experiences.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  I can imagine you too.

• 10:37Elizabeth Day?

  What's been the most transformative trip you've ever been on? We're in Bath, come on.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  I think, so I've done plant medicine and I've done ayahuasca. I've had a number of very transformative experiences with ayahuasca and with magic mushrooms. And I think that, I think that it's really incredible what we are learning now from the sort of neuroscience perspective of what psychedelic medicine can do to us and can help us with, and particularly in terms of our mental health and also our trauma, the traumas that we're carrying. So I found my experiences to be revelatory, to be hard. But, but I'm also really interested, there's a lot of new studies coming out at the moment,

• 11:27Speaker 01

  which is really looking into, you know, like areas like, you know, psychotherapy and such, but always, you know, always going into our traumas in a super safe, super held, super comfortable place where, you know, in First Nations communities, a lot of this healing and a lot of this trauma work would be done with plant medicines and within a ceremonial, ritualistic context, which often included pain.

• 11:57Elizabeth Day?

  Well, well deflected.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 12:01Elizabeth Day?

  What a pro. Well, let's get into your failures because it will lead us into some fascinating territory. Your first failure is your failure to truly allow your creative voice and the music in your soul to reign supreme.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:14Elizabeth Day?

  So tell us about that tension, the music in your soul and the music that for many years, I imagine you were producing and selling. Did, did that tension feel difficult at times?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  So I suppose at the beginning, I loved singing and I loved music so much and it was just so very natural to me. But then to to sort of have everything handed to me on a plate in terms of like, you know, all like a record deal and all of this success and travel and glamour and all of that, I didn't have a chance to become ambitious or hungry. And and also what was really wonderful about doing the music that I did then was that I was constantly getting to sing with orchestras all over the world. I was like, yeah, wherever I was going, I would be singing with the National State Orchestra of Pennsylvania

• 13:11Speaker 01

  or Chicago or wherever I was. So that's a wonderful thing to be held in that sonic sphere as a vocalist, as a singer. But it but it wasn't, it wasn't what I loved, you know, because actually, at that time, what I loved was the Spice Girls. Yes. You know, and I was gonna, and Peter Andre. No, that's fine, that's acceptable, mysterious girl. It's not really acceptable at all. Amongst others. And then as I grew older, actually, all of the music that I loved was sort of new soul. People like D'Angelo and Jill Scott and India Ari and and so as soon as I was

• 13:55Speaker 01

  allowed to break away from the sort of classical crossover stuff, and all I wanted to do was go and make R and B. And so the record company were like, um, I don't think so, that's not gonna be happening anytime soon. General record company man. And and it was like my my tiny little startings of of writing and making my own music and exploring my own soul. And that very quickly got sort of shut down by.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  The people that I was working with in the industry.

• 14:29Elizabeth Day?

  And how would they do that? How would they shut it down? And how would they not allow you to do things?

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Well, they would just basically say that this song was no good. I I spent a long time having to rehabilitate my creative self because for a very long time I didn't think I was creative. I didn't think I was artistic. I knew that I was talented. I knew that I could sing. But the rest of it, I just, I just thought, oh, well, that's not me. That's these other people who are, who play instruments and who, who write music and, you know, all of that sort of stuff. So I I've I've lived with a lot of doubt around my own creativity and my own capacity to write songs and create music. And then in my twenties, when I met my now husband, I started writing music with him.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  And so then I was starting to write some really fucking weird stuff, which was sort of like prog, R and B, folk, polyphonic. I mean, just like all over the shop, very experimental music. But then I, because I'd been so, so badly wounded by the industry, I wanted nothing to do with the industry anymore. And so I self-released it, self-funded it all. And that was really difficult as well, you know, then that's a whole area of the business. I'm like, oh, God, I don't know any of this stuff. How do we do all of this stuff? And so now I feel like I'm finally at a place.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  I've been working for the last year on music that is feeling just so free and golden and just like easeful and juicy.

• 16:13Elizabeth Day?

  That's so beautiful to hear. And I wonder if you feel that your singing is now in alignment with your purpose?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Interesting. Yes. I think that in a way, my singing, because, because I had such a deep, genuine love for it and because it was before I had a chance to become like affected. You know, like lots of singers have sort of affectations in their voice and it's very stylized and not that that's a bad thing, you know, some of the best singers in the world are very sort of stylized, but my voice was always very like. Right from the centre of my being.

• 16:55Elizabeth Day?

  And do you now believe inside that you are creative? Have you worked on that piece of self-worth?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. And I think that it really came from outside of music. So I think when I started to really go, hang on a minute. I am creative, I can do this, was actually creating the dreaming. Because again, it was so out of my sphere of and frame of reference. And every time people would come in and look at the interiors and every time people have gone through the experience as well, that I have spent like meticulous time, love, energy, detail in in curating and making it exactly as I want it to be.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  People are like, wow, this is like so incredibly creative and thought about and these interiors. And I feel so held and this, that and the other. And I'm like, so that was the thing, the thing that really first started to make me accept and realise that I was a creative being and I was a creative person. And that very quickly then has gone straight back into music.

• 18:08Elizabeth 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. 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.

• 18:54Elizabeth Day?

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• 19:10Elizabeth Day?

  Talk to me a little bit about the music industry. As you experienced it, I mean, you you were very funny when you did that impression of the the standard man in the music industry.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:21Elizabeth Day?

  But I imagine it was such a specific time. You know, and you became famous aged twelve from a TV phone in and then you're pitched into this industry that is incredibly male dominated at the time that you were in it. What were your experiences like? How do you feel about it now?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Um, they were terrible. There's no two ways about it. I was not looked after. I was not nurtured. I was just totally exploited, like I was a commodity. And the industry was incredibly razor sharp. And, you know, even from having like, I had forty, like forty percent of my earnings taken from me by my manager at the time. And so even stuff like that, even stuff like the deals that that I got into and that my parents signed on my behalf, but they were also totally green and naive. So we got massively taken advantage of without a shadow of a doubt.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  And you know, I've made my peace with it now because, you know, I I understand the the wider context, you know, I'm a deeply politicized person. And so I'm not looking at myself in a, from a victim mindset in terms of like, oh, poor me, this thing happened to me. I've sort of worked through a lot of that stuff and I can understand the soil in which I was growing. And that soil was full of shit.

• 20:48Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Actually, full of shit would be too bad, wouldn't it? Um, full of chemical, no, worms is great. Uh, full of terrible chemical compounds of which shouldn't have been there and were strangling lots of young women at that time.

• 21:05Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. What advice would you give to your pre fame self?

• 21:09Speaker 01

  I would say, I mean, it's almost impossible. Just hold steady and actually, I'm really proud. When I look back, you know, and I sort of do inner child work and I look back at my little self, I I'm really proud of her. I'm really proud of the poise that she that she showed and the and the bravery and the and the calm in the storm. There was like a And I feel it still, I'm quite lucky to have a sort of quite calm centre. And I think that I, I think that I've always had it my whole life, but I think that really kicked in because, you know, when things started to get really heightened and even,

• 21:51Speaker 01

  even things like before a big show. So, you know, I'd be doing the Olympics or, you know, George Bush's inauguration, like insane world events. And my mother would be there like flapping, breathing, like so nervous for me. And I would just be like, just super chilled because I had to be. But that also, I think then, helped me cultivate a sense of calm in my life.

• 22:18Elizabeth Day?

  And a sense of self, because it feels like, I mean, I don't know you, although I feel like I know you, which must be the weird thing about fame, but it feels from my perspective as though you haven't changed. Your essence has not altered.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. And I, you know, I think that's probably the same for everybody in a way that we are with, you know, within us is that, that's that same soul essence that has been with us since conception and that has absolutely grown in complexity and beauty and shadow and all of it, but is essentially the same person.

• 22:53Elizabeth Day?

  You've got three children. I wonder if any of them want to be famous?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, they don't want to be famous necessarily. I mean, it is funny sometimes when they're like, can we get on your Instagram? Or, and I'm like, absolutely not. I'm very protective, very lioness about, you know, as much as I possibly can, keeping them out of the limelight, just because I know, I know what it means to not consent, I suppose. And so I want to make sure that if that is something that they choose for themselves, that it is something that they have as much capacity and wherewithal to consent to. But, but they're both interested in lots of artistic things. My son does a lot of acting and my

• 23:43Speaker 01

  daughter does acting and singing and she's set for world domination. She's, she's studying power dynamics currently in the Western world. She's built herself a curriculum. She's amazing.

• 23:57Elizabeth Day?

  And I imagine with, with a, with a mother who has this Protective force and this knowledge, I mean, they're going to fly. Your second failure, it's a big one.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:07Elizabeth Day?

  Is your failure to totally strip the patriarchal and colonialist conditioning out of my person.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:16Elizabeth Day?

  I mean, and I feel like you're amongst friends here.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:19Elizabeth Day?

  Because we can probably all relate to that, I'm guessing.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. I think that it is, it's a lifelong job, really. I thought that I was doing pretty well in those terms of, you know, particularly in the patriarchal terms. Maybe not so much in the colonialism and really looking at where colonialism was still alive and well in my own life and psyche. But particularly in terms of the sort of patriarchal stuff, I thought that, you know, I was, I had done a lot of sort of self-work. I'd done a lot of, you know, understanding the broader context of society and how, you know, what patriarchy was doing to both men and women in our society. And then I got these tattoos.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  They're aquatic coral water snakes and I saw them in a meditation and they wanted a symbol on my body. And how it started at the beginning, the symbol was about making my body as strong as my spirit. That actually, and they were, they would be a reminder of the discipline that it took to be able to like wind tight and be intense and whatever else. I needed to be, oh, and then unwind and be super relaxed. So that's what I thought I was getting them for. And then, but as soon as I had them, as soon as they were on my body, it was like where I was still allowing patriarchal constraints in my life. I could just see it all.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Like, and my whole body was like reactive to.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  The ways in which I was still allowing sort of patriarchal oppression in my life. And whether that was from men, whether it was from women, whether it was from others, whether it was from myself. And that was a really interesting byproduct of these tattoos that I was really not expecting. I mean, however, they were also, they're the symbol of Lilith, Lilith being the first woman.

• 26:20Elizabeth Day?

  I'm obsessed with Lilith.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's great.

• 26:22Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, Adam's first wife, who refused to bear his children, I think.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  She refused to lay under Adam. And so then God banished her from the Garden of Eden. And then he condemned half of all of her children to die. But yes, her symbol is holding two snakes. So in a way, I suppose it does make sense in the Lilith version.

• 26:45Elizabeth Day?

  What does patriarchy mean to you?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Is the dominance and oppression that has been shown towards the feminine and towards children and nature. This idea of dominance and control. And I think it is so, so deep in our subconscious and in our psyche. What I'm really passionate about is maybe trying to find ways in which to talk about it where we're not utilizing always the same language, where we're not always talking about toxic masculinity and we're not talking, you know, and we're talking in other ways

• 27:32Speaker 01

  where we can bring men back in. That is my overriding sense is that patriarchy is fucking terrible news for all of us. And of course, the sisterhood must remain strong and connected to each other in order that we can protect each other from the excesses and the violence, because it does manifest in violence and rapes and domestic violence. And there's a lot of femicide going on in the world right now and a lot of repealing of a lot of women's rights. But I think that underneath all of that, we must also look to what is going on for

• 28:12Speaker 01

  men and how isolating and how isolated men are currently, much like a lot of us, you know, the the mental health epidemics are going on in in all areas of society. But I I I see and I'm and I'm praying and dreaming in a world where everybody can can start to feel what balance truly feels like.

• 28:38Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Because I think at the moment, as women are rising and women are feeling stronger in society, that is making a lot of men feel like threatened and feel like they're in the minority, when really, it's just that they're so used to imbalance. It's difficult because part of me wants to say if we can be gentle with it, you know, if we can be as loving and caring in this transition, in this change, as we possibly can to bring everybody who is struggling or conservative or traditional or along with us. But then again, there is this sort of glaring, blaring alarm in the background. It's like, time's up, guys. Come on.

• 29:22Elizabeth Day?

  I think you've expressed that so brilliantly, and I think there is so much power to be had in compassion and in the solidarity that comes through vulnerability, which is really a lot of what this podcast is about. And I think you're also touching on the point that those values or qualities have traditionally wrongly been seen as somehow feminine.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:46Elizabeth Day?

  And patriarchy traps us in believing that that is weakness.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:50Elizabeth Day?

  And it's weak for a man, therefore, to admit vulnerability. This and and it brings all this misplaced shame. And I think that there are two things going on. One is if you're still lucky enough to be born into a world made in your image, and if you are a straight white man, you kind of are, then you're less likely to think of a failure as a verdict on your character. You think of it as an overcomeable obstacle on your path to success, to guaranteed success. But I think the other thing that's going on is that idea that to admit to calling something a failure. Patriarchy tells you that that's weakness.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:26Elizabeth Day?

  And that's changing a lot alongside the kind of alarm bells and what's going on in America.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Within the sisterhood, like, we have, we have these mycelial networks of interdependent relationships and which, which enable us to be in almost constant communication. The, the ways in which men have lost the community of men and the brotherhoods is much more serious and much more isolating than the ways in which women have. And so I think that often there's just not the sounding board there for men to, to even talk about what failure is or could mean, or how that looks, or whether something might have been, to, to even have those conversations. And I know we're making generalisations here

• 31:12Speaker 01

  and, and there are thousands and millions of, you know, men and sons and uncles and friends who are engaged in brilliant dialogue about their lives. But I suppose, you know, when we're talking about generationally or within, you know, the broader societal context of what feels like a total breakdown of society, then I, I think that really we have to, or at least I really want to start to turn my attention and my efforts to nurturing men within a, a balance that helps them feel not so threatened. Because I think that this

• 31:55Speaker 01

  polarisation i- is going to get us into some really, really bad situations. And so there has to be forgiveness and there has to be compassion and there has to be, I love the book Conflict is Not Abuse. So there has to be this idea of being able to sit, sit with people in really awkward, difficult conversations and situations where you are essentially reaching out your love and your empathy and your understanding and doing a bit of eye gazing. Very, very simple, but so powerful.

• 32:28Elizabeth Day?

  Well, I think it's incredibly generous of you to want to extend that nurture, given what you experienced at points when you were incredibly famous, at the hands of men, but also of patriarchy. And I just wonder if we could chat a bit about that, about how that's informed you. We've touched on the music industry, but we haven't really explored how demeaning and sexualised some of that might have been for you as a teenager.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was really extreme, you know, really extreme to be constantly made a figure of fun, a fodder, not taken at all seriously in any way, in my art, in my thoughts, in what I had to say. But then also being betrayed on a very personal level by my first boyfriends, the first men that I had sex with, and, you know, them all selling stories and making a lot of money. And that being a deeply, deeply wounding, shameful thing to happen. And then also witnessing my mother going through that and being like absolutely torn apart by the media

• 33:44Speaker 01

  and blackmailed at the hands of the media to the point where, you know, she tried to take her own life and it's massively affected her mental health ever since. So, you know, the women in my family have had their fair share. And then also, I also reflect on the idea of, just to bring a bit of the colonialism into it, and don't get me wrong, like this is nothing, or not a patch on the colonialism that is, you know, has been seen throughout the world. But in terms of my own specific experience of it, when I've looked back on those newspaper articles and such, so many of them talk about me being Welsh in a way that was really also very demeaning.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  And it's a subtle one, but it's definitely there, it's definitely present. All of those things together. And then, of course, in terms of more broadly colonialism and not being able to strip colonialism out of my person entirely. I think that is the deepest work of our time for us collectively. And I think that the deepest wound that colonialism leaves is separation. Separation from self, separation from our relationships, our interdependent relationships with each other, separation from the land, separation from our ancestors and our idea

• 35:12Speaker 01

  of this sort of spiritual continuation. Yeah, I am deeply involved now in decolonial work, really trying to educate myself as much as I possibly can, you know, of where the oppressor within my own psyche still lies. Because so much of this stuff starts with us. Where is the colonialist patriarchal oppressor within your own life, no matter what gender you are?

• 35:39Elizabeth Day?

  And so much of it is hidden and insidious. And this is my ham-fisted link to asking you about something that I read that I can't quite believe, but I'm sure is true. The tabloid press hacked the phone of your family priest.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Father Richard. Yeah. So they hacked Father Richard's phone. I mean, it was literally everybody who knew us in Cardiff. It was all of my teenage friends. It was like my teenage friend's nana. I mean, it was just like, it was crazy. Like, when the police first came to us with the Leveson inquiry and such, we were one of the first families they came to because our names appeared so regularly on all of the private investigator's list. So we were particularly targeted, even dear old Father Richard.

• 36:35Elizabeth Day?

  Poor old Father Richard, but poor you. Have you forgiven?

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Have I forgiven? Hmm, not quite.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  I gotta keep a little bit of that flame, that fire.

• 36:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  That fierceness alive. Just tend to the rage somewhat.

• 36:56Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, my gosh, Charlotte, I love that phrase and I want it on a T-shirt.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Tend to the rage.

• 37:00Elizabeth Day?

  Tend to the rage.

• 37:07Speaker 02

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• 37:26Speaker 03

  This is a life or death matter. My wife's life is at stake.

• 37:30Speaker 02

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• 37:36Speaker 04

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• 38:10Elizabeth Day?

  And it brings us on to your third failure, which is, I love this. We've never had this before. Failure to be a wild woman.

• 38:20Elizabeth Day?

  Tell us about this one.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  So the wild woman's an archetype, you know, she's outside all the time. She is so deeply embedded in the world, in the shadow, in all of it, you know, in all of the feral, primal. She's sexual. She's like, she's desire itself. She is pure creativity. She's, yeah. She's lush.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  You know, in so many ways, I think that, you know, I talk a good game. You know, I've been in the public eye for such a long time. Lots of people feel like they know me. But, you know, the truth of it is, I've still got such a long way to go, as do we all. And it's never done, you know, this sort of, this evolution of self. But yeah, I am, I feel, I feel really confined. I feel really not free. I'm doing my own fucking head in, in so many areas of my life where I'm still like in these traps, in these patterns and traps of behaviour and, and I'm, and I'm so, like,

• 39:33Speaker 01

  she's so tantalisingly close, the wild woman, the woman who can just, you know, leave all of the tech and just have her hands in the soil from, you know, dawn till dusk. So she is who I am really wanting to move towards in my life. But there's just, there's so much to get through, there's so much to work through. And I think the other thing that I'm learning as well, because I've been, you know, really focused on this healing and this spiritual path, I think that we can often, and I certainly have, fallen into the trap of just constantly doing the work.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  You know, you're just constantly in the shit of it all. And actually, we need to be able to circle in and out of it, you know, go in for periods of time and, and understand what it is, who we are, you know, have a, have some realisations, go through, and also, it's not just like our own personal realisations, like, life just comes and.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  You know, absolutely smacks us in the face with stuff, whether it's a grief, a loss, all sorts of different things that can happen in our lives that make us advance somewhat, even as painful as it is, but that is what makes us advance, is suffering. So, yeah, what I'm still failing at on a daily basis is to break free of these shackles, of the confines of my mind, modern life, bad habits, all of it. Yeah, and that's annoying.

• 41:13Elizabeth Day?

  Very, I can relate, because The Wild Woman, for me, one of the things that I find so aspirational about her is that she doesn't give a fuck what other people think.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:27Elizabeth Day?

  Now, where are you on that journey? Do you care what other people think?

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Oh. I care about what certain people think. I really don't give a fuck what a lot of people think. But really, they're the people that I am not, that I don't feel like, well, even still, I was gonna say, they're the people that I don't feel like are in my tribe. So generally, that would be like fascists. I don't give a fuck what fascists think.

• 41:57Elizabeth Day?

  Fair enough, yes.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  However, there is a bit of me that's like, yeah, but you do give a fuck what fascists think.

• 42:04Elizabeth Day?

  Because you want to try and reach them in a way.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely, because it's like, you know, what else are we supposed to do in this age of polarity than to be a bridge? So, in a way, I suppose I do give a fuck what fascists think. And, well, actually, we should all give loads of a fuck what fascists think, because they've got all the fucking power right now!

• 42:25Elizabeth Day?

  But do you, because you speak so truthfully, and there's a certain courage to that, and when you go on This Morning and Alison Hammond can't keep a straight face and you're doing a sound bath.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:38Elizabeth Day?

  Does that bother you?

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that pissed me right off.

• 42:40Elizabeth Day?

  Did it?

• 42:41Speaker 01

  That pissed me right off.

• 42:43Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, I felt for you.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I've, yeah, I've met Alison Hammond a number of times, and she's a wonderful woman. I think that part of it was, it was a misjudgment on my part, to go, let's do a five-minute sound bath on national TV, that makes loads of sense, yeah, let's go for it. So I think it was a misjudgment on my part, but I think that what annoyed me more than anything else was then, was that then I'm given the opportunity to... Uh, display and demonstrate and represent somewhat this amazing art of sound healing or or sound ceremony, or however people wanna describe it. And then it's made a figure of fun, then it's that really did actually touch quite a

• 43:28Speaker 01

  deep wound for me. I was like, ah, I really like you, Alison, but fuck you.

• 43:33Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, because it reminds you of all those other times that you felt you were made fun of.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. So and and and I'm I'm in this dance with a celebrity, which is where I probably shouldn't say this. My daughter's always saying that I say too much and that I'm too honest and that I need to keep some stuff back and be like a bit more of a diplomat about things.

• 43:53Elizabeth Day?

  I mean, you're you're safe here, is what I want to say, that I don't I I am really enjoying your openness.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. But yeah, I think that there is there's there's an element of I stick him away from the from the spotlight and from fame and from the excesses of it all. And I have to sort of rehabilitate somewhat. Uh, and and then and then but then I'm like, oh, okay, well, I'm gonna have no platform now for for the things that I really care about and the things that I do wanna change and the thing the changes that I do wanna see in the world and any influence that I do have. So I'm constantly in this dance of pushing it, being radical, coming back, doing something that's very mainstream. You know, so so that is a thought process for me of of pushing it as far as I can

• 44:42Speaker 01

  and being as radical as I can, not not just for radicalness's sake, but just because that is genuinely who I am and how I feel. But then also having to go, oh, God, somebody I'm gonna get cancelled.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  And yeah, and so then just being in this sort of dance of power, I suppose, and influence.

• 45:02Elizabeth Day?

  I love your Lilith qualities. I really admire the way that you turned your rage and that you are so honest and truthful with your journey. And I think it makes us feel included and invited. And I said to you before we came on stage that everyone that I've spoken to who knew I was interviewing you, without a fault, said, oh, my gosh, her retreat looks amazing. I really want to go. Yes. And so I actually think you're doing something very powerful and very necessary. But for now, I would really like you all to say the biggest, most rousing, most feminine, powerful thank you to the amazing Charlotte Church.

• 45:49Elizabeth Day?

  I wanted to mention our subscriber podcast, Failing with Friends, where my guest and I answer your questions and we offer advice on some of your failures, too.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  That completely uncontrollable, ferocious grief gave me such a joy, such a connection with with nature.

• 46:10Elizabeth 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.