'There were just simple things': Why Charlotte Church begged her parents not to move to LA
Charlotte Church begged her parents to let her stay in her native Wales rather than move to LA when she became famous.
The 37-year-old singer became famous overnight when she sang 'Pie Jesu' down the phone to Andrew Lloyd Webber when she was just 11 years old and quickly released a multi-million selling album but explained that it was the "simple things" that kept her from leaving Llandaff for Hollywood permanently.
Speaking on the 'Happy Place' podcast, she told host Fearne Cotton: "So my mum and dad had spoken to my whole family and were like: 'Let's all move to LA' and I was like: 'No way. There is no way I'm moving to LA. It's crazy, I don't know anybody out there. What about my friends? I love Wales!'
"And there were just simple little rituals, you know, like hitting that Severn Bridge and every time I hit the Severn Bridge it was just like 'ah' and then the local radio station would come on with the same songs that they were playing when I left and I knew nothing had changed that much, that regardless of how massive whatever it had been that I had just done this was the same and my friends were the same, not much had happened that I'd missed that I couldn't catch up on."
The 'Crazy Chick' hitmaker - who has children Ruby, 15, and Dexter, 14, with ex-husband Gavin Henson, as well as 22-month-old Freda with spouse Jonathan Powell - went on to add that staying in her hometown was "hugely important" to her and as she ages she has begun to embrace her "roots" even further.
She said: "It was hugely important for me, in a people way, but now as I get older, witchier, and a bit more connected with the land I do think it's a properly rooted thing. And people when they meet me now say: 'You feel really rooted like a tree' and I do think that's my really rootsy Welshness."
