Latest news with #LeymanLahcine
Telegraph
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Paloma Faith: Having a baby made me attack my partner
Paloma Faith has confessed to throwing a chair at her partner in a fit of rage during the early weeks of motherhood. The singer also threw a roast dinner against the wall after discovering that her partner had eaten a meal without her. Faith said the stress of hormones, struggling with a new baby and believing the baby's father was not pulling his weight caused her to snap. The mother of two daughters, now aged eight and four, said she felt 'embarrassed and guilty' after lashing out at Leyman Lahcine, her former partner. She told the Hay Festival audience: 'I still feel bad. I'm embarrassed, I still feel guilty. ' I had a really bad birth and couldn't actually stand up vertically for three months. I had three infections and was on antibiotics for three months and drips and all kinds of things. 'Then on the first day I could stand up postpartum, I decided that what I was excited about doing – because before I had kids I loved cooking – was to make a roast. 'I made this roast and the food was ready and, just as I put it on the table, the baby started crying upstairs. So I went to settle the baby, and she was difficult, and I fed her and put her back to sleep and then I came back downstairs. 'And there was one roast dinner served up on a plate, sort of looking into the darkness of the garden because it was November time. I said, 'Where's yours?' and he said, 'Oh, I ate mine because you were upstairs for so long.' 'And I was full of hormones and everything, and I've never, ever hit anybody in my life but I picked up the roast and I just smashed it against the wall, and then I picked up a chair and threw it at him. 'I feel so bad because I'd never attacked anyone and I was raised by a pacifist and I am a pacifist but something happened in me, this animal thing.' Faith added: 'My kids' dad would say, 'I wish I could help you more, I just don't know how to or what to do.' I'd say, 'Do you think I f---ing know what to do? I don't know either. And I've just spent six months reading that book that you're reading today.' The couple have since split up. 'Brutally honest' guide to motherhood Faith has written a book, Milf, billed as a funny and 'brutally honest' guide to motherhood. She said many women who bought her book have made their husbands read it. 'There was one memorable moment when I was backstage at Glastonbury and this bloke who was doing the lighting ran up to me in his combat trousers and said, 'I just wanted a minute with you.' He was weeping and he said, 'You saved my marriage.' 'He said, 'I read your book and I became a better partner to my wife, and it was a good way to understand what she'd been through.'' Faith, 43, who is also an actress, presenter and podcaster, wants to bust the myths of motherhood that often leave women feeling they are failures. Discussing the idea that all women feel an instant rush of love when they first hold their newborn, Faith joked: 'I was expecting it would be Disney and there'd be birds flying. Neither of my children looked how I'd imagined them to look because basically they're Play-Doh when they come out and they don't really look like anybody. 'People politely say, 'She looks just like you,' and you think, 'Really? I hope I don't look like that.''
Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Paloma Faith: ‘Adele gave me the best tip for motherhood'
Singer-songwriter Paloma Faith, 43, was born in east London. She has released six albums and the hits Can't Rely on You and Only Love Can Hurt Like This. She won a Brit award in 2015 for best female solo artist, was a judge on the talent show The Voice and has starred in the films St Trinian's and The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, and the TV series Pennyworth. She lives in Hackney with her two daughters, aged eight and four, whom she shares with her ex-partner, Leyman Lahcine, a French artist. I've been waiting for my mum to die my whole life. She had a brain tumour in her pituitary gland when she was pregnant with me. Before that she'd had five
The Independent
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Paloma Faith: Why I won't be giving my children smartphones
Paloma Faith has said her eight-year-old has stopped begging her for a smartphone now she's installed a landline that her child can use to prank call her friends. The singer and mother-of-two is one of a growing number of celebrities who have today put their name to a 100,000-strong movement of parents committed to giving their children a smartphone-free childhood. Backing the campaign, she said: 'I actually allowed my children to occasionally look at my smartphone and that was fine for a time as I'm a single mum, and sometimes needs must. But when I took it away, the difference was instant. 'They slept better, they were more focussed, more imaginative and much better company – no tantrums, no disasters, just a brilliant childhood. My eight-year-old was begging me for one over and over, and when I installed a landline she stopped entirely. 'Now she loves prank calling all my friends just as I did when I was eight. I'm glad she won't be littered with all the superficial rubbish that a smartphone will bring in her teen years too.' The singer co-parents her two children, aged eight and three, with her ex-husband Leyman Lahcine. She joins Joe Wicks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jamie Redknapp and Sara Pascoe among others who have signed up to limit their children's smartphone use. The pact commits families to delay giving their children smartphones until at least the age of 14 and social media till 16. Over 100,000 people have now signed up for the commitment, organised by campaigners from Smartphone Free Childhood. According to research published by regulator Ofcom last year, 24 per cent of five-to-seven-year-olds now own a smartphone, while three-quarters use a tablet. The number of five-to-seven-year-olds who go online to send messages or make voice or video calls has been rising – from 59 per cent in 2023 to 65 per cent in 2024. The use of social media sites by children is also increasing, as is online gaming, Ofcom research found. The government has asked the University of Cambridge to run a feasibility study into the impact of smartphones and social media after MPs pushed for stronger regulation on smartphone use. The Safer Phones Bill, brought by Labour MP Josh MacAlister, had initially proposed raising the digital age of consent from 13 to 16 but this has been watered down to secure government support. Ministers have instead committed to research the issue and report back. Conservative MP Kit Malthouse, a former education secretary, accused the government of having 'dithered, diluted and capitulated' on the issue. Daisy Greenwell, director of Smartphone Free Childhood, said: 'Over the last decade, childhood has changed dramatically due to the rise of smartphones, and it has fast become the defining parenting challenge of our time. 'Families have been put in an impossible position by the lack of regulation around Big Tech, forced to choose between either getting their kids a smartphone which they know to be harmful, or leaving them isolated the only one without. 'The overwhelming response to the Parent Pact shows just how many families are coming together to say 'no' to the idea that children's lives must be mediated by Big Tech's addictive algorithms.'
