Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton - ‘We were young and working-class. We were dismissed.’

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2:15Comes a super-powered adventure. On April 1st. Pack our things. The galaxy gets even bigger. He knows that's my bike, right? Yes. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Only Peter's April 1st. Get tickets now. Natasha Hamilton was 16 when she signed a record deal that would change her life forever. Until that point, she'd grown up in Liverpool, attending local schools where she was bullied for her mixed race heritage and red hair. She found refuge in singing and performing from the age of 12. And then in 1999, she was recruited to join the girl band Atomic Kitten alongside Liz McLernan and Kerry Katona, who was later replaced by Jenny Frost.

3:09The group went on to sell over 10 million records and achieve three UK number one singles, including Hole Again and The Tide Is High. After five years and the birth of her first son, Hamilton quit the band until they were reformed in 2012. Hamilton, now a 43-year-old mother of five, has since 2024 been concentrating on her solo projects, including setting up her own record label Morpho, which focuses on nurturing and empowering young talent rather than, as she puts it, moulding them into a product. She's also been releasing new music. Her latest single, Numb, has just been released and is a total bop.

3:55But there is a darkness underneath the electro pop beats, which speaks perhaps of Hamilton finally having found her own voice some 25 years after Hole Again reached the top of the charts. Hamilton says, It's the most honest work I've ever made. there's a rawness to it but also a clarity and strength that comes from everything I've lived through. Natasha Hamilton welcome to How to Fail. Wow it's what an intro. What a woman. It's so lovely to be sitting here opposite you. First of all thank you for the music. Thank you for those years that you gave us with Atomic Kitten and for what you're now delivering.

4:40It is so needed in our culture. Thank you. You know you say that I get goosebumps because it never ever fails to resonate how much that music means to other people. I refuse to believe that Hole Again is 25 years old. How dare it be that old? It's crazy. It's like it happened in the blink of an eye, but also I've lived many lives in that 25 years. so talk to me about your 40s so we are both in our 40s now how are you finding it as a decade great I wasn't looking forward to it I don't know I feel like that the turn of being 40 felt quite dramatic and uncomfortable actually I wasn't looking forward to it at all I don't know why I mean I was leaving behind a lot of sadness really but also a lot of greatness because I just started living in a really comfortable part of my life and I don't know maybe a new decade I was like oh please stay stay like I hope everything stays well but with age comes just a lot of clarity about the life you want to live the person you want to be about not really caring about the noise that can surround you, especially in the industry that I'm in.

6:04I spent a lot of years doubting, is this the right direction? Am I good enough? What will people think? And actually turning forth, he was a great marker for me because it was like, none of that matters. This is the decade to be unapologetically fair. me and enjoy life, enjoy my career, enjoy my creativity and what life can be if you live without fear. That is so powerful. Tell me about your new single, Numb, because is there an element that you felt numb through some of your fame, your previous fame, and you've sort of woken up in your 40s? Would that be accurate? None wasn't deliberate. So I ended up in a writing camp in Spain through chance.

6:59I was at my husband's charity event. I met a singer-songwriter called Kyle. He was like, look, I've got this writing camp. I think you're great. I've listened to your music for years. Why don't you come out? So I just took a chance. I booked a flight to Alicante for three or four nights and went to a writing camp where I didn't really know anybody and it felt quite liberating and from fear of making another wrong move or bringing another wrong person into my life I'd cut myself off from feeling and it wasn't until I was in this room listening to music like this song has to be called numb this moment now everything that happens beyond this is my rebirth and it really empowered me is part of the reason that you set up morpho because you didn't want younger creative artists to go through some of what you went through with Atomic Kitten?

8:04Yeah I think everyone around us at the time was doing the best that they could do in this machine that was just gaining traction and Atomic Kitten was becoming bigger than what we ever thought it could have been and I still speak to my old management like they're still part of my life you know in a small part and my old record label boss is almost like a mentor to me now and I appreciated the position that they were in whereas we were a product and everyone's got a job and we have to move forward but on the flip side of that there were parts of the life that we were living where we needed support that we didn't get and I don't know whose shoulders that was to fall on I think between management record label and parents everyone was trying to do the best with the tools that they had but if there was practices in place that they'd learned or experienced from other bands pre-atomicating because let's be honest we weren't the only band who were young and who struggled I think there could have been things put in place that would have helped a lot so with Morpho Records that's what I'm doing I'm setting up a label where first and foremost it's duty of care it's really what does that person want out of their mentorship so for me it's it's giving back you know before we take let's get on to your first failure because as you put it it's the end of atomic kitten and i'd like to go back to the start of atomic kitten because i couldn't believe that you were 16 when you joined until I did the research for this interview so young but you seem to have such a good head on your shoulders when I look back at the footage how did you feel age 16 being part of this band truthfully I was ready I'd been singing since oh forever you know the first school play at the age age of four when we had to be a flower you know there's lots of kids scratching the head and picking at the feet and I was the beautiful flower right really OTT in the middle of the room and teacher saying oh Mrs Hamilton I think your daughter's got something special so it was just always in me to perform and to to want to sing but I think as I got older as you mentioned the bullying started and being left out and you know being punched in the back playing playing games in the in the school playground and being laughed at because I was in the school choir or I was playing the recorder and it was like my my special gift was brought a lot of negativity into my life but the flip side of that was when I did sing and when I was on stage people would be quiet it was it was time away from all of that negative noise I grew up in the inner city of Liverpool and it was brilliant like I love my I still call it my home like I was I grew up in a home full of love my parents were amazing but to step outside of that front door it was brutal at times and it was harsh and I had people picking on me and chasing me and fighting me and you know pulling my hair jumping on my back and beating me up you know this is kind of what it's like to live in in an inner city um also being a ginger kid wearing braces having a mixed race father in a predominantly white area all of these layers of oh my god she's the perfect target for us to bully her so when I joined the starlight show group at 12 which was a group of kids going around pubs clubs theatres anywhere anything anywhere with a stage or a space that we could make a stage um that took me away from the streets every week I entered I was busy I used to love coming home on a Friday and getting my outfits tready and my dad used to taught me how to iron like with a you know a pillowcase and damp it down so you don't burn anything and it was this pride that I had for all these items because we didn't have a lot of money but my mum would save up every last penny to get me like beautiful dresses to wear on stage so from 12 to leaving school at 15 I'd done thousands of shows and I went from being a 12 year old little kid with this young voice to a 15 year old with this powerhouse vocal where people instead of drinking the pint and smoking the fag and chatting you know from three years previous they'd put their drink down and turn around watch and clap at the end so I knew I was like I've got something here that could get me out could get me on a cruise ship traveling the world And wow, how amazing would that be?

13:25So by the time the Atomic Kitten audition happened, I'd done so many auditions. My mum had driven me all around the country, bless her. And she saw the audition. I was at college and I came home. She said, I've got you an audition for a girl band with Attitude. And I was like, OK, I can work with that. When you joined the band, I know you became firm friends afterwards, but Kerry Katona, you didn't get on. we clashed you clashed was that intimidating or because of everything you'd been through to get there did you feel this inner confidence that it was all going to be okay i wouldn't say intimidating but i was definitely upset because coming into atomic kit and having andy mccluskey and stewart kershaw back at omd being in the rehearsal space they're out the studios that they owned listening to the songs for me I knew like at that age I was like this is the one this is the ticket out so to clash almost instantly with Kerry and I was just being myself I was trying to suggest dance moves and I just wanted to come as a team player but I think that was seen as being too bossy or you know I hadn't quite earned my place to be suggesting what the girls should do but when you grow up you know in the situations that I had you have to kind of have a confidence and maybe a bit of bravado and I'd done it for years it wasn't my first rodeo I yeah I think I just overstepped the mark a little bit and Kerry didn't like it and she did go back to the studio and say I don't like her and if she stays I'm leaving and they told me that they were like what happened at the flat and I was like what do you mean and they were like Kerry Kerry said she doesn't want to work with you and I just burst out crying I was like I really don't know I was just trying to be helpful anyway they just said well you stay you best get on and it was difficult because Kerry and Liz lived in a flat together for like I think 18 months before I even turned up so they had a really close bond and yeah they had to let me in and I had to earn my way in and it took a little while it was a bit frosty to begin with but I was a tough cookie at that point so I was gonna try and make it work every way I could and you did make it work as a band yeah and And I am obsessed with talking to women who were in the public eye who made it through that time.

16:16Oh, my God. Like late 90s, early Y2K media attention, which is part of the reason I was so excited that you were coming on. because I, as someone who was not in the public eye whatsoever, found that period of time difficult enough to handle in terms of how I felt about myself, how I felt about my body. And I cannot imagine what it was like for someone like you who was famous. What do you remember of the tabloid attention when you did get famous? I remember starting the band and liking myself. I liked the way I looked I liked the fact that I was flat chested and you know and I was quite boyish sporty I think then when people start to highlight what is wrong with you it's a really confusing place to be in because you're not really sure why people are saying these things and all of a sudden you go like oh maybe that does need to change or you feel it is an attack on who you are and I think I was down the line like part of me the naivety of it all was I don't really give a shit but the longer it went on it does chip away and you do start to care and it was always very apparent that you know Kerry was the beautiful the bombshell you know things like that and there's always a language used around how Kerry looked which was not really ever used for me and Liz I don't suppose you know and you kind of you get used to that and then you do start to think oh maybe I'm not that that pretty you are so beautiful and you were then and I just need to state that as a fact for the record I I was a beautiful young girl growing up in the public eye but I think it does I knew I'd get upset.

18:23Oh, Natasha, I can't even imagine. And I really, it's important to show these feelings. Like, it really is. I'm upset, but I'm angry. Yeah. You know, I've got an 11-year-old daughter, a 15-year-old son. And you just think, how dare people be that mean and disgusted about people? kids yeah but it it was what it was we were fodder fodder for the tabloids fodder for the magazines i don't know why it's still so raw no um i'm so sorry you went through that it's okay i'm actually like i'm fine i think there's a lot of pain that gets boxed up and occasionally when you open it it's oh it pinches because there were times when I'd cry in bed and there were times when I was just in a hotel room on my own with no parents and no friends and feeling really vulnerable um scared not good enough but then you have to open that door the next day and be like hey I'm Natasha from Atomic Hitton yes I feel pain not just for myself but all the young people back then who you had to be dragged through the media like that um it it was tough times and I'm probably more sensitive to it now because I'm a woman and it's unfair.

20:09Back then I think I had to really toughen myself up to it. I had to just be tough and you have to tap out a little bit and it's that numbness feeling. You're not feeling, you're going through the motions, you're doing things that half the time you don't want to do or you're in a public space and in the back of your head you're thinking oh my god everyone's looking at me and how thin I am or they're judging me or like I don't look nice and it's just a level of scrutiny on top of the pressure of being famous that um is difficult it is difficult thank you so much for opening up about that I don't know why I get so emotional over that please like I I I totally understand why you get so emotional and if it helps any woman I've ever spoken to who's had a similar experience to yours has done the same and I think potentially it's because you were so busy and working and booked at the time and it was a different era in terms of mental health that you were never given the opportunity to process no and it and it also strikes me Natasha that so much of what you've done in the last couple of years is about parenting and healing and healing and parenting your own children parenting young artists but also parenting yourself as you were then yeah and there's something so beautiful and powerful about that you've turned your pain into that kind of purpose yeah it was just so lonely and so isolating and if there was someone I could pick the phone up to and say okay this is what happened today and as you say process it in real time instead of putting a lid on it and pushing it down deep for decades yeah and sometimes you just say it but you're not reliving it and I think it's in situations like this where my whole my whole being is reliving it it's whoa like that really was upsetting and I just think god like if that was one of my own I do like my mum and dad must have got a lot of grey hairs from basically sitting at home having to watch from afar what their teenage daughter was doing and going through via the media could you talk to your bandmates I'm sure you could but was it difficult because they were teenagers too it was spoken about but probably more like in a sense of cheeky fucks yes you know kind of bit more bravado to it um but were we confined and into our deepest darkest secrets with each other no not really but you know we're talking 25 26 whatever years ago So that wasn't the thing that we did.

23:16We didn't really know that we could do that. I think the least we spoke about it and the more we buried it, the easier it was just to crack on and get through another day.

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26:27Select schools available. Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo.me slash stash terms. Max$100 cash back per month. Given everything that you went through and then Kerry left the band and was replaced by Jenny Frost and then you got Hole Again to number one. What did that feel like? Unbelievable. Did we think in a million years that Hole Again would go to number one after re-releasing the album? Bearing in mind we released it the first time around, it flopped. I think it went to 39 in the charts and left the following week. Then a member left and we had to scramble around quite ferociously to find someone and get Jen.

27:11And that's why a lot of the, all the TV performances of Hull Again with Jenny are live because all we had was Kerry on the track, which I loved. I was like, yeah, we get to see you live. we knew it was going to do well but when I say going to do well we were hopeful for top 10 but we were going up against you two at the time like they just absolutely annihilated any everyone so to get that phone call I'll never forget I was in the Regent's Plaza Hotel in Maida Vale that's what it was called then I lived there for like two years and my manager was like it didn't do as we expected and we were I was like oh it's like in bed in my PJs we're bloody number one and I'm like like jumping on the bed fell on the floor then I put the phone down and next door was Liz and then I can hear Liz screaming and we had an interconnecting door so we opened the door so we just threw ourselves so we were like what honestly that whole week is a blur it is it is a an absolute blur of promo like every day it was sales up we we annihilated you two and i love the t-shirt you wore at the time which was you two just another irish boy band so cheeky it's so funny so cheeky have you ever met bono yes so we'd we'd had a few impromptu meats and drinks with Bono actually leading up to that hence why I thought oh he'll be able to take it and that was at the Enemy Awards but then Jenny called him over and said oh you need to look at Natasha's t-shirt and I had a jacket on and I was like and he was like show me a t-shirt terrible sorry I'm so sorry to anyone who's Irish and I showed them the t-shirt and he went fair play And when he collected his award that day, he said something like, we've had our arses kicked by pop.

29:21Well done, girls. There's so much that is sort of dismissive in the narrative around girl bands because it's young women. But there was an additional dismissal, I think, with Atomic Kitten because you were working class. How much did you feel that at the time? I think our naivety and our youth and not really knowing a lot about politics and how people were treated differently, especially if they were northern and had a Scouse accent. We were fearless. I'm glad we didn't really know much about that or pay much attention to it. but looking back and hearing other people's stories like management and label and the stories they've told me I'm like oh we weren't really yeah we weren't we weren't aware in that moment because we just wanted to be successful and I'm glad it was kept away from us but when you think that Atomic Kitten in the midweeks were outselling U2 2 to 1 yet no one would play our song on radio we were so dismissed and it was only when it hit number one on the Sunday that they had to play it because obviously it's in the chart and every week thereafter our sales went up so on week two of number one we increased sales every week for four weeks the only person to do that previous to us was Michael Jackson.

30:56But that's so interesting that you weren't being played on the radio. So it was literally like your live appearances were, your performances were driving the sales. Yeah. That's very impressive. Yeah. Like I can remember doing certain radio shows with male presenters and we'd be like, we don't really want to do it because we're basically sitting ducks with a man who's more eloquent and intelligent than what we were at our age, just taking the piss. And, you know, that infuriates me now because I'm like, why did we have to do that? But it was, well, you have to. There were certain panel shows that, you know, I was asked to do and I'd be crying to management and say, I don't want to do that because there is just a load of men going to take the piss out of me.

31:45And why would I want that? And I was being asked to do that show when I was actually diagnosed with postnatal depression. but you know it's it's the biggest show on tv oh well i don't want to do it yes which panel show buzzcocks right yeah so it's that humor where yeah they take the piss but when you've got postnatal depression and you're vulnerable that's not going to go down very well you poor thing that That is so much. You mentioned the postnatal depression. So you gave birth to your first baby boy. And the doctor said you need six to 12 months off. And they gave you six weeks. Have I got that right?

32:34Two weeks. Two weeks. It wasn't, it was two weeks. Yeah. And then you were back on stage. Yeah. Yeah. It was really tough. because even when I had two weeks off, I was not lay at home, chilling, watching this morning. My nervous system was completely shot and I couldn't relax. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't focus. And I had this immense pressure of when are you coming back to work? when is you know if you're leaving just tell us you're leaving and it was just a constant I don't know if I suppose at the time it felt like a threat and in the end instead of being threatened I just made the decision myself to leave after that yeah and is that the end of Atomic Kitten that you are quoting as a failure because there are various ends of Atomic Kitten the band so no I think when you've had such huge success at such a young age and you walk away from that at the at the peak like we another 12 months probably would have made us financially stable for a very long time coming off the back of this huge success and then having a whole year off I've had my biggest I've earned the most money I've earned ever where I've just sat at home trying to heal for a year and all of a sudden I've got a tax bill and I'm having to go back because I'm on my own with the kids and I'm the breadwinner so I need to get back to work and I think it wasn't I wasn't going back out of passion and love it was fear yeah and oh my god like how can I ever do that again how will I ever beat that how can I fit back into a world that I didn't love anymore but I needed to because I had a family to support so the fear of failing and not being able or not wanting to really do that again it was such a confusing time in my life Do you think you've recovered from that time even now?

34:57Do you think you've recovered from the end of Atomic Hidden? Yeah, I've definitely made peace with it. Like at the end of Atomic Hidden, me, Jen and Liz, I don't think we spoke. The odd text message, but we didn't speak or we weren't sisters the way we had been for a good while. It was heartbreaking. they were my girls they were my sisters but my decision to leave also may end their career and they had to go off and do different things that maybe they weren't ready to do I'm not sure maybe they were maybe they weren't but there was definitely a time where there was that feeling of animosity and it didn't end well and people didn't like me I didn't like them.

35:49It was just, it was hard to go from this tight-knit bubble to just being at home with my kids, not really even understanding how the real world worked. And you were still only 19 when you had your first baby. 20 we're 20 yeah how are things now have you healed enough to have a friendship with your former bandmates yeah god yeah yeah yeah we've we've moved like we've moved on as they say time is the greatest healer and it's been a long time and we've reformed and we've done other bits and bobs together which has been beautiful but my career really did come to an abrupt halt and that was something I'd worked hard for like that's all I ever wanted to do out of everyone all the girls in the band I'm the only one that wanted to be a pop star everyone else kind of fell into it so to end on such a dramatic and negative point it it was heartbreaking it really was because I wanted to do that I wanted to be a pop star until I didn't really didn't want to be a pop star I hated it and to fall out of love with the one thing you always wanted to do that's a bit of a head you know what it's very tough because it leaves you without an identity I imagine absolutely that identity crisis leads us on to your second failure which thank you I want to preface this by saying thank you so much for talking about it because I don't think you've spoken about it before and we're moving on a few years and it's after you had your daughter Ella at the age of 31 would you mind telling us what happened yeah so I I had Ella very quite soon into my relationship with her father off the back of a painful divorce so I'm not in a great place but I've met someone who I get on really well with I had a lot of health issues and was in and out of hospital with ruptured cysts at previous to falling pregnant with Allah so I'd had a lot of investigations going on I'd been told by the doctors not going to be able to have kids no more in my head I don't need to go and get this coil put back in because even though I had one I did have one and I was trying to get it put in in a private clinic never quite got there in time in my mind I'm like oh well that's probably why I've kids young giving it out to the universe I'm blessed I've got three and then yeah I fell pregnant with Ella and it was massive shock I fell out with my family over it like they were they weren't happy and I'm very close to my family so that was quite isolating because they were worried about yeah of course like you know I'm having a baby and I've I've come through a lot of hardship and a lot of mental health issues off the back of going through a divorce so there's my support system gone for a little while um we did make amends in the end and then obviously I'm having a child with someone I don't really know and we were good friends but it was quite telling early on that things weren't great but in my mind I'd made the decision and like I'm gonna do this with or without you kind of kind of thing I don't I don't need your permission to to continue with this I will carry on but you know Rich was there and we made the best out of the situation that we could I think there was just a lot happening my whole pregnancy was horrendous I was ill, like violently ill for weeks and weeks and weeks, stressed, anxious, depressed.

40:11And then after I had Ella, I, yeah, I started having dark thoughts. So I was cooking tea in the kitchen one day and I had a sharp knife and a flash came through in my mind of me cutting my wrists and it was quite joyous I wasn't in pain I was quite enjoying it and it scared the hell out of me it was a moment of what the hell was that and I I was very I was taken back by it, it was a lot. And I shouted Rich and he came in and I told him and I was shaking from head to toe and he helped get me to the hospital because at this point I was just having a complete meltdown. And yeah, I was told I was having like a mental breakdown.

41:18I was under the care of the hospital for quite a few weeks. I was treated at home. They did offer to have me at hospital and have Ella with me. They had wards where women who were struggling post-birth, they could stay and be treated with the baby there. But I was able to go home and have that treatment with Richard and my parents there every day. I was sedated for a couple of days just to sleep because leading up to what happened, that imagery, I hadn't slept I'd say for weeks I used to get up in the morning sit in the shower and cry because I was so exhausted from my mind yeah just so tired tired of life tired of my brain tired of not being able to sleep oh god when I came out of that I can remember just feeling again numb a complete numbness on a level that I'd never felt before but also a it was such a relief because everything I was feeling I'd said I didn't hide anything I was scared that my children would be taken away from me because I was some kind of crazy lady who couldn't be trusted with the kids but honestly the mental health team at Chester Hospital were incredible so supportive but that for me was the first time I'd said enough is enough like this is this is rock bottom for me and I just need to take one day at a time to figure out how to function again and I was given 18 weeks of intensive CBT therapy that at first I just thought this is a load of nonsense um I don't know why I thought that just maybe from how I'd grown up the environment so you know this is a load of woo-woo or whatever but I committed to it and it changed my life it was really difficult at first because no one's telling you what you should think and how you should be and what the next step is and that was the hardest thing for me.

43:40I was so used for someone telling me what to do. Managed, I'd been managed. I'd had a manager from the age of 16. I was constantly told who to be, what to do, how to look, how to act. I'd never been given the reins of my own life before. I'm so emotional hearing you talk about this. I can feel how terrifying it must have been. It was horrible. because I was so scared to make the wrong decision.

44:15But what I've realised is there is no wrong decisions. All you can do is try. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And being able to let go of the reins and say, I don't know all the answers and I don't know where life is going to lead me, but I have faith that everything's going to be okay. Yeah. I think a lot of things that happen in life make you lose faith. Yes. But it's something I'm really trying to hold on to at the moment. Like 18 weeks later, I cried my eyes out leaving that therapy room. The woman who'd looked after me was like, that's it. And I said, can I stay in touch with you?

44:57And she said, no. Oh, my goodness. She said, we're not allowed. That's sort of extraordinary given what you just said about being managed. like here was someone who gave you back your agency what do you think is the most important thing you learned about yourself during those 18 weeks like I am capable of making my own decisions and when you think you're 31 years old and you haven't realized that yet or had to I just had to go through so much to have the realisation of I am capable and at the time my sister my younger sister had just signed up to go to beauty college she was on a new path and I thought I think I'd like to do that I know a lot about beauty I've had every beauty treatment under the sun and I'm quite like I am I love like at school I was a bit geeky I was like a science girl like I love science I was really good at it and I loved the fact that going back to college I'd have to learn the anatomy of the body and learn the science behind what we were doing and take exams so all of a sudden I was like I'm going to do something for me like I'm going to focus on something else I don't want to just be living in this uh me me me what else can I do to grow as a woman so I signed up for a local beauty college course and I was terrified I got my mum to drive me there I got my mum to get out the car and walk into the college oh like your first day of school literally yeah I was like can you just walk in and have a look and like tell me if it like what's it like she was like oh my god Natasha and I was like please I was you know I was quite raw and vulnerable but I also knew that I had to just be me and go go out there and do these things to to grow that led to me going to London and studying at the International Institute of Anti-Aging and becoming a skin specialist and opening my own clinic and honestly it's it's incredible what can happen when you back yourself.

47:12I'm in awe of you. I'm so admiring of you going through that process and ending up where you are. How old is Ella now? 12? She's 11 now. 11. And what's your relationship like with Ella? Incredible. I mean, apparently I'm not as cool as what she used to I think. Happens to us all. Sometimes I'm cool. But super close. I just shot my next video on Friday and she's in it. She's not in it for the sake of being in it. There's a part of the lyrics of the song that refer to the celestial beings that I've created or that we create as women. and she has a role in the video and oh my god that girl the confidence she is everything I wanted to be as a young girl and more she is so articulate and confident in herself and in her don't get me wrong she's been through it she's a young girl navigating life at school and and also having two famous parents which is very difficult so her father is Richie Neville from five yeah yeah so instantly she's different to everyone else and she has come up a few against a few things at school which we just try and navigate with as much love as we can and you know I tell her when I was a little girl I got bullied and I was picked on and you've got to some young kids maybe listening to what other people are saying and they don't really understand and it's your it's up to you to tell them you're just the same

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50:24that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EbGliss can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EbGliss. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EbGliss. Before starting EbGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EbGliss and visit ebgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. So many women will feel so seen by what you have just shared.

50:57Those women who are currently feeling terrified, isolated, alone, who are freaked out by their own thoughts, who are so fearful of putting their relationship with their baby at risk, they will take so much comfort from the fact that you have this wonderful relationship with Ella. Yeah. All of, I think from that moment on, all of my relationships got a lot better. I mean, the kids were only, I mean, Ella was a baby, but the kids were young, but like my older boys, they obviously saw mum, mummy struggling. I never tried to hide anything. I've always been very transparent and open. You know, they don't need to know every, at the time they didn't need to know everything.

51:39But what I would say is talk to someone. The worst thing that you can do is keep it all inside. And going back to my postnatal depression with Josh, I hid that for so long for the fear of people saying, oh, you're so ungrateful. You're a pop star. You're in one of the biggest bands in the country and you've got this money and you've got that. What have you got to be sad for? and what other people think of you is quite frankly none of your business it doesn't matter but you can't keep all of them feelings locked in to yourself because it only gets worse and worse so if you can find the courage just a little bit of courage to reach out to a family member a friend an older child if they're older and just just confined so well put yeah your third and final failure is life after divorce so you've mentioned it there in terms of the impact it had on your personal relationships but this was a very specific experience to do with business wasn't it Yeah.

53:00Again, I'm so thrilled you're going to talk about it because I cannot tell you the amount of people who I know who will relate to this. OK. So and also the other person who spoke about this was Mel B. OK. So you're in great company. So you went through a divorce and what happened financially afterwards? Well, I mean, I was very much the face of the business and my husband, ex-husband, he was the finance and not just that, not just for business, but for my own personal business. I mean, now I go, wow. But when I went through my divorce, I didn't even have the login details to my online banking.

53:44Wow. Now where I am in my life now, I'm like, what? and this is when you're in your late 20s is that right yeah yeah and I imagine as well you're used to other people being in control of the money that to me that made sense yeah that was that was totally normal for me and I'm not saying I was in a relationship where he was like I'm having these these are not for you I was happy just to go you can deal with that while I'm in my box over here we built multiple businesses together coffee shops restaurants bars businesses I could sell in the future and help support me and the family pension whatever that may be and you know it meant a lot to me it was like this is the first time I'm doing these businesses off my own back with my husband after a tom of kitten I feel like I'm succeeding this is great and then the divorce happens and everything gets frozen and all of a sudden I'm thinking well where are my assets where are they because there was lots of them and and now there's literally nothing look I can't I can't tell you like what all of this was in a monetary value but it was many years of my life yeah i'm talking five maybe years of working really hard every day we're getting you know press coverage and you know celebrities are hanging out in the club and you know it's all the all it's great it's like all of this is going to one day be my rainy day pot for me and the kids and yeah going through divorce all of that just fell down all around me and I didn't have the access to what all these things were because I didn't have a bank account I've never seen a book on any of the accounts I it was like where all where are all these things where does it exist yeah I don't know I can remember sitting at my um island in the house um I just like a lot of bills had bounced and I'm like getting like these calls and I'm like I don't know what's going on and like all my accounts have been frozen and I just remember phoning the bank crying saying I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do I can't even log into my online banking I don't know how to do it like I'm going through a divorce and I need someone to help me it was the worst free like it I just felt like this free fall of chaos and anxiety it was wild that's horrendous what what happened did you did you just did i mean i don't want to be intrusive but like did your ex-husband take it all i don't i don't know what happened to this day i went through a divorce with a clean break after it just got to a point where i thought i can't put any more money into investigating what the hell has happened here because I'm a single parent with a family to support.