Atomic Kitten star Natasha Hamilton is back with a solo pop career and a new single, Edge Of Us.
She’s been putting family first as a mother of five children, but now it’s her time to shine – and she’s come back feeling empowered and ready to do things her way.
Speaking on this week’s My Dirty Laundry podcast, Natasha, 41, reflects on her personal life in a rare interview and said her past love splits have led to the ‘sickest, darkest feelings she’s ever felt in her life’.
But she said there is something incredible about ‘learning from her bad decisions’ and learning about how to fend for herself.
Natasha is mother to son Josh, 20, with her bodyguard ex Fran Cosgrave, Harry, 18, with actor Gavin Hatcher, Alfie, 12, with ex-husband Riad Erraji, Ella, eight, with boyband star Ritchie Neville and Kitty, nine months with husband Charles Gay.
Natasha Hamilton, 41, revealed splitting from the five fathers of her children led to the ‘sickest, darkest feelings she’s ever felt’ but admitted she’s ‘learned from her bad decisions’
Natasha is mother to son Josh, 20, with her bodyguard ex Fran Cosgrave, Harry, 18, with actor Gavin Hatcher, Alfie, 12, with ex-husband Riad Erraji, Ella, eight, with boyband star Ritchie Neville and Kitty, nine months with husband Charles Gay
Speaking on this week’s My Dirty Laundry podcast, (pictured), the Atomic Kitten star revealed all about coming back with a solo pop career and a new single, Edge Of Us
She said: ‘We’re a blended family and sometimes I feel like people can’t fathom how you can make something work that from the outside looking in, that looks different or chaotic.
‘They just they can’t comprehend what they don’t know, but I’m sat here with five incredible children and my life has continued and flourished and got better, despite the traumas that I’ve been through in my personal life.
‘Did I ever want any of that? Of course I didn’t! God, you must be mad! Like, to ever wish any of that upon you – but I can’t live in the past.
‘I’m never going say I wish that didn’t happen. I’m not going to wish my life away. Everything has made me the woman who I am today.
‘I’m probably more accepting than most people are because I have been through a lot. I do not judge someone because of their circumstance. Absolutely not.
‘I judge people how they treat me. You know, how you show respect to people, like they’re the important things.’
Talking about how empowering her new single is, she said: ‘When you’re going through a breakup, from my experience, It’s probably the weakest and the lowest you actually feel.
‘You get that like sicky knot feeling in your tummy where you know you’re going to have to walk away but you have a lot to lose.
She said: ‘We’re a blended family and sometimes I feel like people can’t fathom how you can make something work that from the outside looking in, that looks different or chaotic’ (pictured with husband Charles Gay and their daughter Kitty)
Talking about life now, she said: ‘Tthere’s something really empowering coming through that darkness, because for me, for the first time, I had to just learn how to look after me’ – pictured with her family
‘You might have a home, you might have a child, you might have a marriage. You feel like you’re gonna lose everything.
‘It’s the sickest, most darkest feeling that I’ve ever felt in my life, walking away, especially from like a divorce, or the breakdown of a marriage especially.
‘But there’s something really empowering coming through that darkness, because for me, for the first time, I had to just learn how to look after me.’
Talking about what she’s learned from her past, she said: ‘I’m not looking for someone else to come along and be my hero and pick me up and then, I’m living life their way – so if they leave again…
‘I’m on the floor again and I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m having to learn what to do again and I think I grabbed onto a lot of my insecurities or my lack of confidence in myself.
‘I looked for the partner, the person in my life, the man to build me up and make me feel strong. And it took me a little while.
‘But what I realised is unless I have got my s**t together for me, figured it out myself, not looking for anyone else, looking internally, looking at my weaknesses, looking at the bad decisions and owning my s**t and saying, “it’s okay not to have got it right, but how can I make it better moving forward?”
Natasha pictured with Atomic Kitten back in 2000 – she has said she is doing things her way now as a solo artist
Natasha said that before releasing her new single, she spoke to her kids and said: ‘people might say things or they might change towards you. You might hear something that you don’t like… but told them they could always come to her’
‘The whole of life is an experience and even with the best intentions things can go wrong. So for me it was, I wanted a heartache song but also showing the strength of, I’m okay and you’re gonna be okay.
‘You can walk away, you can be in the s**t and you can still flourish in the future.’
Natasha said she had a conversation with her children before going back into the limelight and she is very protective of her brood.
She said: ‘I’m very open with my kids. And even before coming into this project, I did sit them down and said, “Look, I just want to talk to you because you’ve not, mum’s not gone back into the limelight like this before. And people might say things or they might change towards you. You might hear something that you don’t like”.
‘”Someone might say something about me. But you’ve got to remember that it’s just hearsay and it’s not a reflection on you or me. We know the truth. We know who we are. So stay positive, stay strong.
‘And if there’s any, if anything is happening, come to me and we’ll discuss it and then we can work on it”.
Because they just see me as mum, they love and adore me and I can imagine if something was said or they heard something, they’d be really upset. And that does bother me, that part of going back.
Sometimes it’s like, throwing them in the line of fire a little bit. But this is what I do and it’s what I do best.
So, we’ve had the chats, I’ve spoken to them at length, you know, over the years anyway and the kids are just, they’re happy, they’re supportive, they’re excited.’
Natasha Hamilton, Edge Of Us, is out now.
You can listen to the whole My Dirty Laundry podcast interview by clicking: here
