Charlotte Church has opened up about how she rebelled in her wild teenage years.
The 'Voice of an Angel' child star rose to fame when she was just 11 years old, and struggled with being in the spotlight as she grew into a young woman.
Opening up on Kate Garraway's Life Stories, which airs tonight, The Masked Singer's Mushroom reflected on her decision to move out at 16 and become a party animal.
Mum Maria had been by Charlotte's side every step of the way as her career took her around the world.
After almost four years in the spotlight as a classical music star, Charlotte's outlook began to change as she grew up.
Maria said: "First off it was all exciting and wonderful, but as she was getting older and a teenager she just thought she was so uncool."
After feeling she had become "public property" under the glare of the public eye, and being "sexualised" at age 15, Charlotte began to rebel.
Her aunt Caroline added: "She didn't have that teenage space that all teenagers have, she wanted some sort of normality."
Charlotte, now 35, quit making music and her relationship with her mum became strained, with the star moving out of the family home at just 16.
Maria described the situation as a "pressure cooker" and that Charlotte wanted to "explode" after years of having her every move watched.
In 2002, Charlotte clashed with her parents after they caught her smoking and she told them she was leaving home.
She moved out at 16 and broke off all contact with her parents for several months.
"I was very, very hurt," her mum said. "I tried to sweet talk her and she just didn't want to know."
Now she was living independently, Charlotte began cutting loose and turned into a party animal, leaving her mum feeling "lost and isolated".
"I just literally sat on the floor and cried," she said as she spoke alongside her husband James.
"And I had a nervous breakdown. For months and months I couldn't get out of bed. I just went into like a cocoon, a little shell, you know I was devastated."
As cameras cut back to the studio, Charlotte looked at her mum as she sat wiping tears from her eyes with a tissue.
Kate asked Charlotte: "I mean you've obviously got through it now, but do you think you were aware of how your behaviour was impacting on your mum and dad?"
Charlotte said: "Look, as far as I was concerned I needed to be free. I had to be a specific way for a long time and you know all of the normal ways in which we grow and how puberty happens and how girls become women stifled and such and I felt I had to be this other eternally young, innocent little girl, and that's not where, literally biologically, life was taking me.
"I just had to cut the ties. I was at an age where I thought I knew everything - I knew everything, I knew better, I knew what I was doing, but they were just trying to protect me.
"But I just saw that as them holding me too tight and so I just did what I felt I needed to do at the time."
She added: "It's only with hindsight that I know just what it meant to my mum. It felt like they completely lost me and also this whole life that we built together, this thing that we'd been doing together for the last four years, that was all gone in a second, in an instant.
"So I totally understand now what they went through and how difficult it was for them. But for me, I was 16 and the world was my oyster and I was also having a load of fun."
Charlotte got reflective as Kate asked her if she feels guilty about what happened.
The star said: "I don't feel guilty because I don't believe in guilt really as a worthwhile emotion.
"I feel sorry, particularly to my mum, knowing what it cost her."
Asked what her message to her mum is now, she looked over to her and said: "I'm so proud of her, I think that she is fire and like a phoenix she has risen from the flames again."
And when asked what she wanted to say to Charlotte, Maria said: "I love you, I love her, I'm so proud of her. We've been through so much and I think as a family we're amazing. I love her to bits. I lover her billions and billions."
* Kate Garraway's Life Stories featuring Charlotte Church airs tonight at 9pm on ITV and ITV Hub.
