Dido: From Iconic Noughties Star to Ordinary Life Amid Family Tragedy

Dido found fame in 1999 with her debut album No Angel, which featured hit song Thank you, and along with follow Life For Rent remains among the best-selling albums in UK chart history.

The songstress, now 53, was then catapulted to superstardom when she duetted with Eminem on his iconic track Stan, won numerous awards, sold a whopping 40M records and briefly became the world’s biggest female pop star, raking in a whopping £1M every month. 

But Dido, whose real name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong, suddenly at the height of her fame vanished from the spotlight, revealing years later her shock decision to embrace a ‘very ordinary life’ was in fact due to a family tragedy. 

The singer, who this year released a special anniversary vinyl edition of her debut No Angel, told MailOnline in 2019: ‘I needed to come home, my father was ill and there were more important issues going on than my career.’

Dido’s father, publisher William O’Malley Armstrong – who has not been pictured – was a colourful character on the literary scene, had developed lupus, a degenerative auto-immune disease. 

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‘I wanted to be home where I could go and see my dad every day. That was more important than anything. When you have lupus you know you are going to die, so we all had time to be with him, to say everything we wanted, but death still comes as a shock.’ 

Dido revealed was singing one of his favourite Irish songs, Raglan Road, to her beloved father when he passed away in 2006 aged 69, just three days before her 34th birthday.

After her father’s death, she flew to Los Angeles:  ‘I went for a few weeks to give myself space to think about my dad and that turned into two years’.

Admitting the only music she could write in that time were songs about her father: ‘They were so personal. I performed them only once in Los Angeles and it was too hard.’

Her next album 2008’s Safe Trip Home was largely overlooked and failed to make an impact in the charts, but while in LA she met and later married children’s author Rohan Gavin and in 2011 gave birth to their son Stanley.

Dido made her comeback in 2019 with album Still on My Mind before going on to work with the likes of newer pop stars Grimes, said despite her quieter public image has continued making music.

She told The Telegraph: ‘I have been having a lovely time, being with my family, seeing friends, seeing the world, But the music never stopped. 

‘I am always singing, always writing songs. Music is how I make sense of the world. I just stopped playing it to anyone but my family’.

Later admitting that she had struggled to write quality songs after becoming a mother, telling Graham Norton on his BBC 2 Radio show in 2019: ‘After I had my son I definitely have a couple of years where most of what I wrote wasn’t very good’. 

‘I actually knew it at the time, when I write songs there’s always a bit conflicted, but then when I had a kid I thought ”I’m quite happy’. 

In her 20 years of showbusiness Dido scooped four BRIT Awards and been nominated for two Grammy’s, and was even nominated for an Academy Award in 2011 for the song If I Rise, which featured in the film 127 Hours.

But she now lives a much quieter life and said she can travel around London on public transport without being recognised.   

‘I have no problem living a very ordinary life, Very occasionally someone will come up to me and say: “You look a bit like that singer called…” 

She continued:  ‘And most times they don’t even remember the name, so I smile and get on with what I’m doing.’ 

But now at the age of 53 said she refuses to bow down to record companies and will only tour and release music on her terms. 

‘I couldn’t do anything if I was pressurised. That has never worked for me,’. 

The singer, who is no reportedly worth £10M, spoke candidly about her wealth but said she doesn’t buy ‘big things’ like flashy sports cars, saying instead that money has bought her freedom. 

‘The benefits of having money are being able just to get up and go to the Grand Canyon because you all really want to see it. And then to be able to talk to your son and your husband about it for years afterwards.’