Paloma Faith is not a woman who beats around the bush. Within minutes of our interview beginning, we\u2019re already discussing her sex life and why men need to step up when it comes to parental and marital duties.<\/p>\n
Strictly speaking, we\u2019re here to talk about her slot at Glastonbury Festival<\/a>, but the conversation soon turns to the singer\u2019s 2022 break-up with French artist Leyman Lahcine, her husband and the father of her two daughters.<\/p>\n Faith has written frankly about the \u201cdevastating\u201d split on her new album, The Glorification of Sadness, and its lead single How You Leave a Man, and says her appearance at Glastonbury represents a kind of rebirth. \u201cHaving gone through this break-up and learnt to be a single mum with two very young kids, I often feel unsure if I\u2019m doing the right thing,\u201d the 42-year-old admits. \u201cWhen they said I had the Pyramid Stage on Sunday, just before the \u2018Legend\u2019 slot, I was like, \u2018How in God\u2019s name have I got that?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes when you get a big knock to your self-esteem, like a big break-up, you feel a bit washed up. So when they told me [the news], it felt very special.\u201d<\/p>\n Faith\u2019s Glastonbury<\/a> gig will come towards the end of her UK and European tour, and while she is excited to be performing again, she admits it hasn\u2019t been easy to juggle it with caring for her children, aged eight and three.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got more energy than most but, frankly, I\u2019m so tired,\u201d she says. \u201cTouring as a single parent is something else. Back in the day, I\u2019d get in at two in the morning and then I\u2019d sleep in because my ex would look after the kids. But now I get in, get four hours sleep, then I\u2019m up getting them ready for school.\u201d<\/p>\n Even before the split, Faith says she struggled to balance being a mother with having a career. She is so passionate about the subject that she has written a book called MILF: Motherhood, Identity, Love and F**kery.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe we can have it all,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel a bit disgruntled about society\u2019s expectation on women, because we were given this idea that you could work and have your own money and independence while raising children. What we\u2019ve ended up with is far too much responsibility, and I think a lot of women are burning out.<\/p>\n \u201cParenting is a full-time job. If you\u2019re also CEO of your own business, like I am, then I\u2019m meant to delegate to my partner, but that\u2019s a full-time job because they\u2019ve not got any initiative. It\u2019s exhausting and you sacrifice something, always.\u201d<\/p>\n Faith, whose biggest hits include Only Love Can Hurt like This and Stone Cold Sober, has been known for chatting to her audiences since she started performing some 16 years ago. But where her engagement with the crowd used to be all about having fun, she says it has changed this time around.<\/p>\n She explains, \u201cI keep saying on this tour, in between songs: men need to do more, they need to step up to the bar. And it\u2019s not just about saying, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re a great person, I\u2019ll cook you dinner once a week.\u2019 It\u2019s about having initiative and adopting what are assumed to be some feminine qualities in the household. If you see your partner do the same thing every single day for six years, why don\u2019t you just do it and take it off her hands? I\u2019ve had a lot of men walk out of my shows with their wives in tow. And I say, \u2018Goodbye \u2013 you\u2019re obviously one of the ones I\u2019m talking about.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cUp until now in my career, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever really projected like a sexy, empowered woman. It\u2019s always been quite tongue-in-cheek but I feel like this is a feminist angle. It\u2019s almost like I\u2019m a new artist again.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the music and the chance to play at Glastonbury that has given Faith an added oomph, however. It\u2019s also, as the title of her book cheekily suggests, the fact she has rediscovered her sexuality through dating \u2013 often younger men.<\/p>\n Has it given her a boost, I ask her, to discover she is hugely desirable after coming out of a long relationship?<\/p>\n \u201c100 per cent,\u201d she says. \u201cAges of feeling completely unattractive. And then you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh!\u2019 There was a Chris Rock special on Netflix recently and he talks about how the best sex you\u2019ll ever have is with a woman in her 40s.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, though, the conversation comes back to juggling childcare with her dating life. Faith admits that\u2019s also not easy. \u201cYou try and compress all of your own personal needs and wishes into the children\u2019s sleeping time, which is roughly 11 hours a night,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that means if you want to do some work, write a book, have sex with someone, you\u2019ve got to squish it all into those sleeping hours. I rarely get more than six hours now.\u201d<\/p>\n Faith\u2019s frankness is refreshing, funny, and extremely relatable to women of a certain age.<\/p>\n I do wonder, though, how brave she felt she could be when talking about such intimate subjects so publicly. \u201cI did have to carefully edit the book and the album, because I still have to maintain a relationship with my children\u2019s dad and there\u2019s a fragility to that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cI had the pull between that, but also feeling that the culture needed an injection of the truth.We skirt around it: people know that it\u2019s hard to be middle-aged, or a single mum, or go through a break-up \u2013 but there\u2019s nothing that really talks about the real harsh truth of it and I think it\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p> This year, after much criticism about the lack of female headliners, there are more women than men leading the way at Glastonbury for the first time, with top billing for Dua Lipa and SZA, and Shania Twain taking the coveted \u201cLegend\u201d slot.<\/p>\n For such a confirmed feminist, that must be pleasing to see? With typical candour, Faith says she fears the move could be a \u201cknee-jerk reaction\u201d to the criticism rather an indicator of lasting change.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat tends to happen is they\u2019ll diversify,\u201d she explains, \u201cand include non-white races and women again, and everyone says, \u2018Isn\u2019t it great? We\u2019re progressing\u2019 \u2013 and then it goes back to white men again for years. I\u2019ll believe it when I see it.\u201d<\/p>\n But she adds, \u201cI\u2019m there to watch as many women artists as I can. I really want to support other women. Everyone they\u2019ve got is amazing. This industry tends to be a bit sexist and overlook women of my age. I felt that there was no way in hell that I would be acknowledged as a worthy person because I\u2019m 42, so I am moved by it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels life-affirming that they think I\u2019m a safe pair of hands to carry that moment for all those people who are there after days of hedonism! It\u2019s very special.\u201d<\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times magazine on sale now. <\/strong><\/p>\n Visit our TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n “It\u2019s almost like I\u2019m a new artist again.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":53416,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/paloma-faith-on-diversity-at-glastonbury-ill-believe-it-when-i-see-it-scaled.jpg",2560,1747,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/paloma-faith-on-diversity-at-glastonbury-ill-believe-it-when-i-see-it-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/paloma-faith-on-diversity-at-glastonbury-ill-believe-it-when-i-see-it-300x205.jpg",300,205,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/paloma-faith-on-diversity-at-glastonbury-ill-believe-it-when-i-see-it-768x524.jpg",768,524,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/paloma-faith-on-diversity-at-glastonbury-ill-believe-it-when-i-see-it-1024x699.jpg",800,546,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/paloma-faith-on-diversity-at-glastonbury-ill-believe-it-when-i-see-it-1536x1048.jpg",1536,1048,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/paloma-faith-on-diversity-at-glastonbury-ill-believe-it-when-i-see-it-2048x1398.jpg",2048,1398,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\"It\u2019s almost like I\u2019m a new artist again.\"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/53415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Paloma](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2024\/03\/paloma-faith-celebrity-bake-off-2-30ba5e0.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"paloma-faith-celebrity-bake-off-2\\"\/")
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