Paloma Faith has candidly spoken about the parenting blunders she's encountered while raising her two children, aged seven and three. The 42-year-old singer, who shares parenting duties with ex-husband Leyman Lahcine, confessed to losing her youngest child on tour and even experiencing a near-death incident.
Paloma made the revelations while promoting her brutally honest book MILF: Motherhood, Identity, Love and F*****y, which delves into the realities of being a woman and mother in modern society.
In a chat with Fearne Cotton, Paloma admitted: "Quite often, I'm with a seven and a three-year-old, I've had days where I've lost one or they nearly died and it's commonplace and your nervous system is supposed to recover."
"One just ran in front of a car today and there was a big crowd. The other day I was on tour and the three-year-old thought it would be funny to hide, without announcing that we're playing hide and seek. I had all these people standing in front of the entrances and exits in the hotel and I was screaming, like a blood-curdling scream.
"People thought once I found her that I had overreacted, like 'Oh this woman is so dramatic', but my life was flashing before my eyes and I didn't really care what people thought about my blood-curdling scream."
While grappling with the personal issue, Paloma revealed she was overwhelmed by comments from her team about her Glastonbury outfit, stating: "You're just like, 'Can I just have five minutes, as I've literally just seen my life crumbling down? ' And then the baby's in my arms."
On the podcast, she also discussed her dislike for the term associated with her book title 'Milf', expressing her disdain for what it originally stands for.
She told Fearne: "I kept being called a milf and I didn't know whether to appreciate it or tell people to F off."
Paloma described the label as a backhanded compliment, saying: "It feels a bit like a pat on the back, like the runner-up prize, like 'Well done, you're still attractive'.
"It's like actually I'm still a sexual being and I'm still me and I didn't, on giving birth, lose my entire identity and become an 1950s projective version apron-wearing woman. We're still us."
The Only Love Can Hurt Like This hitmaker said splitting from Leyman was "the worst thing" to ever happen to her but says they have managed to maintain a friendly relationship.
She has candidly stated that the challenges of parenthood had played a significant role in their separation, telling The Independent: "You either grow together, adapting to one another like expandable foam and filling the gaps where it's empty or one person grows and the other stays the same."
"And I think for me, becoming a mother was such a massively life-changing experience that for the first time in my life, I needed more than nothing and the expandable foam just wasn't there."
She continued: "Our relationship ended because we have those children. And I think that was worth it."
Paloma has remained tight-lipped about the reasons behind their split for the sake of their children, who she keeps out of the public eye.
In a previous chat with The Mirror, she said: "It's a different feeling having kids and knowing they'll read about it in ten years. I have to be respectful of that because when they're older they might say, 'F*** you'."