Charlotte Church has revealed that some fans believed she was an “actual angel” after the release of her first album Voice Of An Angel, while speaking about the struggles of growing up in the spotlight.
The Welsh singer-songwriter rose to fame as an operatic singer in 1997 at the age of 11, before later finding success as a pop star.
Speaking on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories, Church, 35, said: “People often would say that I was an actual angel. And you know, this is particularly in religious America and stuff where people really thought that I had some sort of, you know, divine power.”
Church’s Voice Of An Angel album was released in 1998 and became a double platinum selling album in the UK and US.
Church recalled that during the early years of her career, she met a man backstage at a concert in New York who informed her that listening to her music had cured his brain cancer.
“I remember having fans at signings and stuff who would be shaking from head to toe to meet me, and that was weird,” she said.
She added: “And there was another guy backstage at a show in New York, who was absolutely convinced I’d cured his brain cancer through listening to my music. It’s like, you know, I doubt it happened. But he was absolutely convinced. So I was like, ‘fair enough babes’.”
Having found fame as a child with a pure and angelic image, Church explained that she struggled to live up to the public’s perception of her as she grew older.
She told Garraway: “All of the normal ways in which we grow and how puberty happens and how girls become women, was stifled and such. I felt I had to be this other eternally young, innocent, you know, little girl and that’s not where literally biological life was taking me.”
Church explained that after reaching the age of 16, having spent a number of years in the spotlight, she had to “cut the ties” with her younger self in an attempt to experience a normal adolescence.
“You’ve got to remember and put me in my context, which is like an impressionable young girl and who’s trying to fit in. So no, there was definitely no conscious rebellion. The only thing I rebelled against was celebrity. My rebellion was: I will be normal.
“I will have this life that I’m supposed to have this life of Charlotte and Cardiff with her friends. This whole showbiz nonsense, which is a facade. This isn’t my life,” she said.
– Kate Garraway’s Life Stories featuring Charlotte Church airs on February 17 at 9pm on ITV and ITV Hub.