Charlotte Church recalls meeting David Bowie with her mother as a teenager
By Mike Bedigan, PA Los Angeles Correspondent
Charlotte Church says that as an adult she would have “talked the hind legs off a donkey” to David Bowie, as she recalled meeting him as a teenager.
The Welsh singer, 37, said although she had not been a fan of the musician at the time, her mother had insisted she take a picture with him.
Church said that as a “slightly awkward” 14-year-old, she had largely been “on receive” while meeting multiple famous faces.
The singer’s first album, Voice Of An Angel, came out when she was 12 after doing “bits and bobs” for TV and changed her family’s life.
Speaking on Rob Brydon’s Brydon & podcast, Church discussed her career experiences, including the slew of celebrities and world leaders she had met.
“I met David Bowie at the (2000) MTV Music Awards… when I was 14 in New York. I had just presented an award to Eminem,” she said.
“It was me and my mum… (who) was a really big Bowie fan.
“I am now consequently a massive Bowie fan but I wasn’t at the time. And he was there backstage… just chatting to somebody else.
“My mum tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Oh, can you have a photo with my daughter?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, sure’. (So) he had a little photo with me (on) my mother’s disposable camera.”
She continued: “He was just lovely you know, again, it’s because I was a kid. As an adult now meeting all these people, I would have talked the hind legs off a donkey to him.
“I would have been so curious and fascinated… but as a slightly awkward teenager who is going through a lot, I just took it all in really.
“I was very much on ‘receive’. I just sort of tried to absorb it all.”
Church also discussed her “fairytale” career success after being scouted at an early age and the wide range of people she had met, including boxer Muhammad Ali, Beyonce and former US president Bill Clinton.
She said Mr Clinton and his wife Hillary had been “immensely skilful at really making you feel like they actually wanted to meet you”.
“They were genuinely interested,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of members of the royal family and other politicians and other world leaders and they just aren’t.
“They’re not really interested. They don’t want to be there and they can’t even be they can’t be bothered to pretend.”
Church said she considered herself to be “a very self-aware person” and was aware of how she was and how she had been perceived throughout her life.
“I think I became famous at a time which was particularly toxic for women and for working class women,” she said.
“Growing up in that really toxic culture, which (was) very much based around a very narrow view of what women could be in society and what it looked like for women to be successful.”
Asked if she thought the situation had changed for young people today, she replied: “I don’t know.
“I think it’s just a bit more insidious now, that actually it’s just sort of more covert.”
Brydon & publishes one week early and ad-free on Amazon Music and Wondery+ before publishing on other podcast services.
