She's the Forces sweetheart who's been shot at by insurgents and targeted by gossip-mongers. But an emotional Katherine Jenkins reveals her toughest battle is on the home front

She’s put herself in incredible danger to visit British troops in war zones, but Katherine Jenkins tells Event how having children has left her facing a very brave decision... and put her career in the firing line

'Barely a week goes by when I don’t think of giving up everything to be with my kids,’ says Katherine Jenkins, trying unsuccessfully to hold back her tears. ‘And then I think, actually I want to make them proud of me. When I’m gone, I want there to be songs they will know I’ve sung for them. I want to give them those memories.’

¿I used to have a lot of time to think about what to wear and to be camera-ready. Now I am lucky if I get a chance to look in the mirror,' says Kathrine Jenkins

‘I used to have a lot of time to think about what to wear and to be camera-ready. Now I am lucky if I get a chance to look in the mirror,' says Kathrine Jenkins

We are sitting in a restaurant near her home in west London and, less than ten minutes into our conversation, tears are rolling down her face. There will be more to come during what turns out to be her most emotional and heartfelt interview to date. It is understandable, given that less than four months ago she gave birth to Xander, little brother to her daughter Aaliyah, who turns three later this month.

Jenkins is different these days. She is softer, more emotional, less terrifyingly ambitious. Gone is the perfectly made-up game face that never cracked under pressure, even when she had to admit to taking cocaine in her student days, and last year when leaked emails, allegedly from David Beckham, furious about missing out on a knighthood, exploded in public: “Katherine Jenkins OBE for what? Singing at the rugby and going to see the troops plus taking coke. F***ing joke.” She refused to comment at the time and now says dismissively: ‘That seems so long ago now. It is just so irrelevant to my life.” Gone is that immaculately turned-out girl whose Miss Wales looks and world-class, Royal Academy Of Music voice brought out the claws in some sections of the classical music world but nonetheless earned her an estimated £15 million and that OBE.

The Jenkins, or Mrs Levitas as she likes to be called, following her marriage to the artist and film producer Andrew Levitas in 2014, sitting in front of me is not wearing a scrap of make-up and is dressed in trainers and Lycra exercise gear. As a mother of two small children, her workout time has been reduced to running to meetings.

Her life with her children is, she believes, both ‘precious and fragile’. Both she and her husband are conscious of their mortality ‘because we have both lost a parent and you know death can happen’, she says. Her most agonising decision in the next few weeks is whether to fly out to an ‘incredibly dangerous’ war zone to perform for the troops, something she has been passionate about for the past two decades and the reason she was honoured by the Queen.

‘You risk your life,’ she says frankly. ‘I’ve been to war zones many times and it’s only now I understand how my mum must feel. I remember calling her from Iraq when our plane was shot at by a ground-to-air missile and I thought that was it. I shouldn’t have even called her because she was terrified for me. I should have waited till I got home and told her so she could see I was in one piece.

‘Now, on the few occasions when I get on a plane I have a panic attack because all I’m thinking about is, “What if something happens to me?”

‘So now I have to make a big decision. Part of me wants to say no, but then I feel so passionate about supporting these troops who risk their lives every day for all of us.’

The tears are falling once more. ‘Life is so much deeper. I want to be a woman my children will be proud of, someone who stands up for what I believe in and someone who does the right thing.’

‘I am changed because my life has changed and my priorities have changed,’ she says. ‘I used to have a lot of time to think about what to wear and to be camera-ready. Now I am lucky if I get a chance to look in the mirror. A few weeks ago I was trying to get ready for a photo-shoot. Aaliyah wasn’t well so I was dealing with her and then, just when I’d got her settled, I bent over to kiss Xander goodbye and he projectile-vomited all over me. It’s a whole new world.’

Katherine with her baby son Xander in May. Her life with her children is, she believes, both ¿precious and fragile¿

Katherine with her baby son Xander in May. Her life with her children is, she believes, both ‘precious and fragile’

Next month Jenkins releases her 12th studio album, Guiding Light, her first album since becoming a mother of two. Artistically it marks a sea-change for Jenkins. She has, for the first time, written her own piece, Xander’s Song – a lullaby for her son – and other tracks that have been chosen, including a version of Stormzy’s Blinded By Your Grace, Never Enough from The Greatest Showman and Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace, are all distinctly spiritual. The sound of the album is less formal, more intimate. At 38, this working-class girl from Neath is not singing to prove the point that despite her looks, despite her background, she can cut it with the likes of classical superstars Andrea Bocelli and Placido Domingo (she has sung with both).

‘I’m singing because I’m grateful to be singing these songs, grateful for the life I have, grateful that the emotions I feel now are so very different from anything I’ve ever felt before.’

Jenkins was ten when she was singled out because of her voice and became a prize-winning member of the Royal School Of Church Music cathedral singers. Her family was not conventional. Her father, Selwyn, was 55 when she was born and chose to look after his two daughters (she has a younger sister called Laura) while her career-minded mother, Susan, did screening for breast cancer. She was 15 and gaining a name for herself as a mezzo-soprano when Selwyn died of lung cancer and it was Jenkins who tried to be strong for her devastated mother and sister.

Jenkins was ten when she was singled out because of her voice and became a prize-winning member of the Royal School Of Church Music cathedral singers

Jenkins was ten when she was singled out because of her voice and became a prize-winning member of the Royal School Of Church Music cathedral singers

In her teens and 20s her motivation to succeed was driven by a sense of loss and by her desire to become the success she promised her dad she would be. She wanted to prove that a part-time model from Wales who won a scholarship to The Royal Academy Of Music could fill the Royal Albert Hall and garner praise from the toughest critics. ‘And I sang a lot of songs I’d sung in church, but the emotion came from a place of sadness.

‘Now that has changed. I can sing the same songs I sang as a child in church, including ones I’ve put on this album, but I feel very different emotions, because while I still feel that sense of loss I also feel so incredibly thankful for what I have with my children and my family.’

Her success was both unexpected and unprecedented. At 23 she became the only classical singer in history to be offered a six-album, £1 million record deal. Her debut, Premiere, was merely the first of 16 best-selling albums, followed by two Classical Brit Awards, an OBE and the record for the fastest-selling mezzo-soprano.

There was, however, she now admits, a price to pay for her fame. ‘I was on a plane travelling every single day of 2010. I was doing incredible things, from singing for the Queen to the Pope and on stages everywhere around the world, but I never stopped. I was in performance mode all the time, which is not a natural state to be in. You don’t really meet anyone, you are just going from a hotel to a stage or a TV show and then back to a hotel again and repeat, repeat, repeat.’

Katherine Jenkins in Afghanistan in 2013. Performing for the troops is something she has been passionate about for the past two decades and the reason she was honoured by the Queen

Katherine Jenkins in Afghanistan in 2013. Performing for the troops is something she has been passionate about for the past two decades and the reason she was honoured by the Queen

Katherine on performing in war zones: 'Part of me wants to say no, but then I feel so passionate about supporting these troops who risk their lives every day for all of us¿

Katherine on performing in war zones: 'Part of me wants to say no, but then I feel so passionate about supporting these troops who risk their lives every day for all of us’

Her relationship with Blue Peter presenter Gethin Jones foundered in 2011, less than a year after they had announced their engagement.

‘I remember getting in a panic, thinking I am never going to meet anyone. I was on a treadmill and it was too hard to get off it. I used to read stories about all these people I was meant to be dating in the papers and laugh, because I never even got asked out on a date or even chatted up for years. I’d go to concerts, then maybe show my face at a party but I never met anyone. I was surrounded by my team. Honestly, it looks great from the outside but it can be very lonely on the inside.’

In light of the #MeToo movement and the recent sexual abuse allegations swirling around Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine, you wonder if this is something she has experienced herself. ‘Yes I have, but not in the music world. I think it’s important people realise this isn’t something confined to movie sets or stages – this happens in shoe shops and everywhere, and it’s something that hopefully will become more and more of an issue and less and less acceptable.’

Her marriage in 2014 to the American writer and producer Levitas, on paper, seemed a very rushed affair. They were engaged and married in a matter of six months. Four years on, she talks about him constantly, how she is in awe of his talent, how supportive he is, how she has been demoted as the main cook in the house ‘because he’s one of those people who can make anything and everything delicious’.

They met on a blind date five years ago, set up by a mutual hairdresser friend, Charles Dujic, and went out once in New York. ‘I hadn’t been on a date for 14 months,’ she says. ‘And then we went out and I really liked him. We just talked and then kept in touch for a year but never saw each other because I was all over the place with work and he was also really busy doing his own thing.’

Katherine Jenkins and her husband, artist and film producer Andrew Levitas. They married in 2014

Katherine Jenkins and her husband, artist and film producer Andrew Levitas. They married in 2014

They bonded, in a very old-fashioned way, by talking over the phone and sending messages and emails. Like her, he had suffered the loss of his father through lung cancer and they were both equally close to their families (Jenkins has just returned from a summer in the Hamptons with the Levitases). When they met up again, Jenkins realised he was the one who should not get away. Within six months they were married and a year later she discovered she was pregnant with their first child.

‘My first thoughts were that I would stop working and be a mum,’ she says. ‘I didn’t do anything in the first six months or so, and then I thought about my own mother, how much she got from her work and how much I loved to sing and perform. I took Aaliyah with me to a performance, and even as a tiny baby she was entranced by the music.

‘Andrew and I talked it over and felt how important it was for our children to see how much we love what we do and for them to be part of it. She came with me to everything I did. But I changed the way I worked, I slowed down, I took different options, I stopped getting on so many planes, but I can tell you there is nothing like performing when you know the man you love and your child is in the audience.’

These days Jenkins opts for hand-picked shows and private performances, as well as roles in London-based productions such as the English National Opera’s production of Carousel, in which she starred alongside Alfie Boe in 2017. Last year she joined Songs Of Praise as a regular presenter. ‘The show has changed and become more open, less about defined religion and more about spirituality. It has more of a Countryfile feel because we travel around Great Britain meeting incredible people. I feel genuinely privileged to be part of the show.’

It was through the show she met the Cistercian monk Brother David, from a monastery on the island of Caldey in Tenby.

‘Working on Songs Of Praise and getting to know people like Brother David, who is now my pen friend, has had a huge effect on me,’ she says. ‘We live in a very busy world and there is a real need for people to have something other in their lives. Mindfulness has become so huge because we know we need a stillness, which again was part of the thought behind my album.’

Jenkins – or rather Mrs Katherine Levitas – is a changed woman. She is no longer driven by ambition or loss, her precious family are now her guiding light. 

Katherine Jenkins’ new album, ‘Guiding Light’, is out on November 30. A UK tour begins in April

 

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