Sophie Ellis-Bextor didn’t realise her mum was famous when she was growing up.
The 37-year-old singer’s mother is Janet Ellis and she was a permanent fixture on television when Sophie was growing up in the 1980s as a presenter on children’s shows ‘Blue Peter’ and ‘Jigsaw’.
The ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ hitmaker was totally oblivious to Janet having a special job as a kid and just thought that everyone’s mum worked on TV.
Speaking to BUILD Live in London on Wednesday (16.11.16), she shared: "I didn’t know any different. She started doing a film called ‘Jigsaw’ when I was really small, and has been in things like ‘Doctor Who’ when i was tiny and ‘The Sweeney’, before she started doing ‘Blue Peter’. At first I thought everyone’s mum was doing that and then I realised that no they don’t and at first it was cool, and then it wasn’t cool because everyone else was like none of our mums do that, so who do you think you are?"
Sophie’s lack of awareness about her mother’s work is echoed now by her own kids; sons Sonny, 12, Kit, seven, Ray, four, and 12-month-old Jesse.
The 37-year-old singer – who has her children with her husband, The Feeling bassist Richard Jones – took her oldest child Sonny to a radio gig she recently did but he had no interest in her music or what she was doing.
She recalled: "I recently took my eldest to work and I was playing live on the radio and I brought my son in to the studio with me and when I finished performing, Zoe Ball who was presenting the show turned to him and said what did you think of the show? And he didn’t hear her because he had his ear phones in listening to his own music so I thought fair enough."
Sophie – who has her new album ‘Familia’ out now – has no issue with her kids thinking their mother is "embarrassing" but hopes they will grow to appreciate her music in the future.
She shared: "I sort of hope they’ve got a healthy mixture of thinking what I’m doing is cool but also thinking that it is really embarrassing, it’s the right mix isn’t it, you never know how it’s going to go until the day."
Sophie Ellis-Bextor didn’t realise her mother was famous
