Charlotte Church has spoken out about "cutting ties" with her mother, Maria Cooper, after quitting the music industry and moving out of their family home at the age of 16.
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During her appearance on Kate Garraway's Life Stories on Thursday, the singer opened up about severing all contact with her mother for several months in 2002, which led to Maria having a nervous breakdown.
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When asked by the Good Morning Britain presenter if she was aware of how her behaviour had impacted her family, Charlotte said: "As far as I was concerned, I needed to be free. I had to be a specific way for a long time and all of the normal ways in which we grow and how puberty happens and how girls become women were stifled and I felt I had to be this eternally young, innocent, little girl. That's not where, literally, biological life was taking me.
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"I just had to cut the ties. I was at an age where I knew everything, I knew better. I knew what I was doing. They were just trying to protect me but I saw that as them holding me too tight and so I just did what I felt I needed to do at the time."
© Photo: ITVCharlotte appeared on Kate Garraway's Life Stories
She continued: "It's only with hindsight that I knew just what it meant to my mum. It felt like they'd completely lost me and this whole life that we'd built together, this thing that we'd been doing together for the last four years, that was gone."
Opening up about her daughter leaving home in a VT that played during the programme, Maria said: "I was very, very hurt because I tried to speak to her and she just didn't want to know.
© Photo: ITVCharlotte pictured with her mum, Maria
"I felt loss, I felt isolated. I just totally shut down. I had a nervous breakdown. For months and months, I couldn't get out of bed. I was devastated."
Charlotte added: "I totally understand now what they went through and how difficult it was for them but for me, I was 16 and the world was my oyster and I was also having a load of fun."
Kate Garraway's Life Stories featuring Charlotte Church airs tonight (Thursday) at 9pm on ITV and ITV Hub.
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