Sophie Ellis-Bextor's life with five sons and why she looks at their phones
Singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor has opened up about parenting and the secret to her 20-year marriage with her musician husband
As a mother of five boys, Sophie Ellis-Bextor is happy she can talk openly to her sons about difficult issues like toxic masculinity. The Murder On The Dancefloor singer's children are aged from six to 21 and, although she keeps an eye on their mobile phones, she says she does not try to demonise them.
She tells Good Housekeeping magazine: '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.' Toxic masculinity is a hot topic following the recent success of the hit Netflix show Adolescence starring Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper.
READ MORE: Jamie Theakston praises 'fantastic' Amanda Holden for her support amid his gruelling cancer battle
Stephen plays father Eddie Miller, who watches armed police burst into his home to arrest his 13-year-old son Jamie (Owen) over a bullying incident. It has sparked conversations around misogyny among young boys online and the radicalisation of young men, with its creators discussing the topic in Parliament in April.
Sophie, 46, is mum to 21-year-old Sonny, Kit, 16, Ray, 13, Jesse, nine, and six-year-old Mickey and says she has honest conversations with them about the subject. She said: '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 (their 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.'
Disco queen Sophie is married to musician Richard Jones, 46, and said her mum – former children's TV presenter Janet Ellis – is partly to thank for their happy 20-year union: '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 are happy that we are happy. We have fun as a family, too. Last year, they came with us for a lot of the tour.'
Pop star Sophie burst on to the scene in 2000 with her number one hit Groovejet (If This Ain't Love), a collaboration with DJ Spiller She has sold millions of albums worldwide, and her other chart successes included the Cher cover Take Me Home and Murder On The Dancefloor – which has enjoyed a recent resurgence thanks to the movie Saltburn. Sophie said of the revival: 'The whole thing was glorious.'
Sophie got the nation dancing throughout the Covid lockdown with her Instagram kitchen discos and recalled: 'It felt so good to have that community.'
This year she is returning with new music. Her album Perimenopop is out on September 12 and Sophie says that it's her way of showing the world there is no age limit on pop music.
She added: 'There's still this idea that only young people make pop music. As soon as I had the new album title, I felt like, 'Now I can literally be myself.' This album is about poking fun at this gloomy chapter and the narrative around it that women should be quietening down and becoming invisible. I don't feel like that at all.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Netflix's Poop Cruise chef disgusts viewers with worst phrase ever to describe carnage on board
Viewers of Netflix 's 'Poop Cruise' reacted with horror as a chef onboard the stranded ship described the clogged toilets on the doomed liner. The revolting documentary had audiences hooked as it covered the disastrous February 2013 voyage of the Carnival Triumph, which experienced an electrical fire on day four that knocked out all power, leading to the vessel being stuck out at sea for five days. What was supposed to be a pleasant four-day trip throughout the Gulf of Mexico quickly turned into a nightmare as the ship was plunged into darkness and toilets and air conditioning stopped working. The crew begged all 4,000 passengers to use red biohazard bags when they had to go number two and pee in the showers so the urine would drain away, but as multiple witnesses attested, many just continued to defecate down unflushable toilets. Fittingly, Abhi, a chef unlucky enough to be working on the Triumph, used a food analogy to paint a picture of what the toilets looked like. 'People were pooping on top of toilet paper, then pooping on top of that. It was layer after layer after layer. It was like a lasagna,' he said. At the end of the documentary, Abhi said he's 'never looked at lasagna the same way'. It's safe to say that Abhi's dreadfully vivid description has turned others off from the classic Italian dish as well. Most people were repulsed by the chef's unfortunately vivid description of the bathrooms 'Thanks for ruining lasagna for me, @netflix,' one person wrote on X. 'My friend was like 'tell me when you get to the lasagna part' and I didn't know what she meant but now I do,' another said. Others could not hold back their revulsion, with one woman writing: 'I'm finna throw up. This man said it was so much s**t and toilet paper in the damn toilets it was like a lasagna.' Others still found Abhi's description hilarious, even impressive. 'The chef has stolen the show,' one wrote, while another said, '2025 has a new Goat [Greatest of All Time].' The documentary was released on Tuesday as an episode in the running Netflix series 'Trainwreck,' which has looked at several different disasters. Past episodes covered the crowd crush at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival and Woodstock '99, a music festival in upstate New York tainted by sexual violence and inadequate sanitation. Viewers of the 'Poop Cruise' episode were particularly horrified at how quickly social order broke down once it became clear the ship wasn't going anywhere. Passengers on the ship told the show that people were hurling bags of feces, having sex out on the pool deck, and hoarding food once supplies began to run low. Makeshift tent cities sprang up because there was no air conditioning in the ship. People dragged their mattresses out to the top and used their sheets to create shade for themselves. This mad dash led to fights over space on the deck. 'Watching the 'poop cruise' documentary makes me realize how much I don't like people,' one person wrote. Viewers were also irked by the 'privileged' behavior of some passengers. A trio of women on a bachelorette party for their friend, Ashley, drew the wrath of many of those watching as they seemed more interested in getting drunk and continuing their celebrations even as anarchy washed over the entire ship. '(They) HAVE to know how absolutely annoying and obnoxious they look in this documentary. Don't care about anything else besides getting a Margarita,' one person wrote. 'Tweedle dee. Tweedle dumb. And tweedle dumber.' One person compared the frenzied actions of the passengers to how Fyre Festival attendees responded when they found out the event was a complete fraud. 'I'm a bit embarrassed to say I enjoyed the same righteous indignation watching the #poopcruise as I did watching the #FyreFestival debacle,' someone said. 'Watching entitled, not-too-smart people go off the rails when there is no danger, but merely discomfort, is a #guiltypleasure.' Toilets onboard the ship began to fill up with feces as sewage spilled into rooms and hallways. Sheets tried to soak it up When it came to the crew's request for people to poop in bags, viewers were outraged that some passengers felt they were above doing that, which included Devin Marble (pictured) People reacted with frustration at the perceived privilege of many of the passengers interviewed for the documentary When it came to the crew's request for people to poop in bags, viewers were outraged that some passengers felt they were above doing that. This, of course, led to toilets overflowing onto the decks and creating a stench so horrific that people reported being unable to stand being in the interior of the ship. Devin Marble, who was on the ship with his newly-minted fiancé and his soon-to-be-in-laws, was one passenger who absolutely refused to use the bags provided. He instead found a lone bathroom that was able to flush when the ship tilted. 'This carnival poop cruise documentary is mostly a display of how f***ing privileged most people are. "I'm not pooping in a baaaag." I hate these people,' one person wrote. 'Watched the poop cruise doco on Netflix and they're all the most obnoxious annoying people you could possibly imagine,' another person wrote. 'Stoked they all got stuck on a s**t boat s****ing in bags and covered in s**t. Insufferable humans.' 'Omg these 'poop cruise' people y'all are the most spoiled people I have ever met acting like being stranded for 4 days was the end of the world knowing u would be saved eventually,' a third person said. Passengers made help signs, drew on robes and bedsheets to document the disaster. Food started to run out onboard and people were left eating grim-looking meals like this bread with mustard and slivers of ham Help finally arrived for them on Valentine's Day - February 14, 2013. Tug boats ushered the floundering ship for the Gulf to a nearby port in Mobile, Alabama, miles away from the cruise's original docking point. In a statement to Daily Mail Carnival said: 'The Carnival Triumph incident over 12 years ago was a teachable moment for the entire cruise industry. 'A thorough investigation following the incident revealed a design vulnerability which was corrected and led Carnival Cruise Line to invest more than $500 million across our entire fleet in comprehensive fire prevention and suppression, improved redundancy, and enhanced management systems, all in support of our commitment to robust safety standards. 'This is in addition to our vigorous Health, Environmental, Safety and Security (HESS) protocols that guide the entire Carnival Corporation fleet as we maintain our commitment to industry leadership in this area. 'We are proud of the fact that since 2013 over 53 million guests have enjoyed safe and memorable vacations with us, and we will continue to operate to these high standards. 'Carnival Triumph, like two other ships in the same class, was renamed after a $200 million bow-to-stern transformation.
Metro
7 hours ago
- Metro
Netflix is quietly adding ‘tearjerking' fan favourite
Film lovers, mark your calendars as a perfect story of love and loss is set to be added to Netflix next month. We Live In Time is finally finding its home on Netflix UK on July 5, but warning, prepare for all the feels. It's a film that will make you laugh and cry, but most importantly, it teaches the audience that time is precious, following themes of grief in such a beautiful way that connects with so many watching. Starring the Hollywood dream team, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, We Live in Time will take you on a bittersweet journey through years of love, heartbreak, and enforcing the age-old message that life is a ticking time bomb. It follows the decade‑long, non-linear journey of Almut Brühl (Pugh), an ambitious chef, and Tobias Durand (Garfield), a marketing exec for Weetabix, as their relationship weaves through love, family, illness and everything in between. Hopeless romantics will need to grab the tissues as the film cleverly explores the life cycle of a relationship, cutting between timelines, past and present snapshots of a couple's story show how their love weathers recovery, birth and death. Directed by John Crowley, the film was released earlier this year and had cinema-goers sobbing and blubbering throughout the beautiful time-hopping story. Reviews say 'this broken timeline approach is part puzzle, part emotional puzzle – and more often than not, it works', while it was also echoed that the structure mostly avoids confusion thanks to cues like pregnancy bump and baby Ella's presence. In our four-star Metro review, Tori Brazier wrote that 'it is a wholesome and touching portrayal of a relationship acted out by two of the UK's biggest stars right now. And it's the perfect movie for when you want to sit in your feelings and be taken on an unashamedly emotional journey.' Still, not everyone bought in. The Telegraph described it as 'calamitous' and argued that some emotional impact is lost when you see outcomes before knowing their back stories. Viewers praised the film for how 'intimate' it felt – 'like watching a real couple in their private moments instead of watching a movie couple sharing big romantic gestures,' wrote @meb6x on Reddit. Another fan, @literary_bonna, described the box office hit as 'a classic 'wish you were them' love story'. More Trending With a 79% Rotten Tomatoes score, critics have labelled the film as a 'powerful melodrama'. If you did end up spending your weekly budget on the cinema trip (obviously you had to get that Tango ice blast), then you will be delighted to know that you can watch this firm fan fave again and again and again when it lands on Netflix next week. Whether you want to pretend you have something in your eye or you just need to weep on the sofa, We Live In Time is guaranteed to take you on an emotional rollercoaster, so buckle up! We Live in Time is available on Netflix on Saturday July 5. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Beloved British actress edges out Zendaya as favourite for Bond Girl MORE: Andrew Garfield confesses to pooing himself after taking too many drugs at Glastonbury MORE: Disappointed fans fume star-studded new rom-com is 'not what was advertised'
Scottish Sun
7 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Actress Emma Laird, 26, rekindles romance with Matt Smith, 42, as pair look loved-up at trendy London bakery
Scroll down for who Matt counts as his former flames PERFECT MATT-CH Actress Emma Laird, 26, rekindles romance with Matt Smith, 42, as pair look loved-up at trendy London bakery Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) ACTRESS Emma Laird seems to have travelled back in time by going on a date with Matt Smith. The starlet, who at 26 is 16 years Matt's junior, was last week snapped laughing with the former Doctor Who star outside a trendy bakery in North London. 3 Actress Emma Laird has been snapped on a date with Matt Smith in London, pictured attending the 28 Years Later film premiere Credit: The Mega Agency 3 Emma laughing with the former Doctor Who star outside a trendy bakery in North London Credit: Eroteme 3 The pair seem to have rekindled their romance Credit: Eroteme Emma, seen at her 28 Years Later film premiere earlier this month, left, seems to have rekindled her romance with Matt, after the pair were first seen in a clinch outside a pub two years ago. An onlooker said: 'The pair look relaxed in each other's company as they sat outside and Matt puffed on a cigarette.' Matt, who stepped down as the sonic screwdriver-wielding Doctor after four years in 2013, has a history of high-profile romances. He was pictured holding hands with Billie Piper at a Surrey fete in 2006. She played Rose Tyler in 34 episodes from 2005 to 2008 before returning for one special in 2010 and another in 2013 marking the show's 50th episode. At the start of the year, Matt was also spotted with Brazilian model Jessica Felix The two were snapped sharing a snog. He counts models Daisy Lowe and Mayana Moura among his ex-flames. He broke up with actress Lily James in 2019 but briefly rekindled their romance the following year. Matt played Prince Philip in Netflix series The Crown, then landed a starring role in Game Of Thrones spin-off House Of The Dragon as Daemon Targaryen.
