Sophie Ellis-Bextor puts her husband first
Sophie Ellis-Bextor will always "choose" her husband over her children.
The Murder on the Dancefloor hitmaker has been married to Richard Jones - with whom she has sons Sonny, 21, Kit, 16, Ray, 13, Jesse, nine, and six-year-old Mickey - since 2005 and she credits some advice she was given from her mother, Janet Ellis, for their long relationship as the former Blue Peter presenter told them to always put each other before anyone else.
She told the new issue of Good Housekeeping UK magazine: 'When we got married, we'd already had our first baby.
'My mum said: 'Make sure you always choose each other over anything else, even the kids.'
"She was right. Even though the kids might roll their eyes if they see us hugging or whatever, they're happy that we're happy. And we have fun as a family, too. Last year, they came with us for a lot of the tour.'
Janet lives around the corner from Sophie's family and the pair are "very close".
The 46-year-old singer said: 'We're very close. [She's] always been so good at encouraging me and giving me the toolkit I need to get out and do what I do. Raising a family alongside that is a constant thing.'
And Sophie's eldest son, Sonny, is currently living with his grandmother.
She said: 'He moved in when he was doing a foundation course at uni a year and a half ago.
'She lives 10 minutes away and was on her own, so they've got each other. It's given him his own space, but also kept him close – he comes over all the time.'
Sophie has always had open dialogue with her sons about the dangers of the online world and toxic masculinity, but she doesn't want to "demonise" anything in case they are left feeling alienated.
She said: 'I've always had a lot of faith in my boys. We've openly chatted about toxic masculinity for a long time. My eldest is very articulate about these things, so none of it was new to my house.
" Sometimes people have an idea of what boys are like, as if they're a different species. As I far as I'm concerned, I'm raising five people who happen to be boys.
"I keep an eye on [mobile phone screen time], because that's parenting, but if you start demonising things, you shut down communication. Then you're like those parents in the 1950s who made kids burn their rock 'n' roll albums.'
The full interview can be read now in the August issue of Good Housekeeping UK and visit www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/sophie-ellis-bextor-marriage-advice for more.
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