I think my parents did want me to go to university just in case, but neither my mum or dad went to uni, so they couldn’t talk.
I owe my mum Jane a lot, as she’s supported me all the way, so I’m very lucky.
Me and my mum didn’t see eye-to-eye for a lot of years, and I’ve never really felt connected with my dad, because he wasn’t there.
My Mum was the main reason why I became a chef. She influenced all of my family to feel free in the kitchen – it was the centre of our home and I have wonderful memories of helping Mum cook and experiencing the love and patience that went into the food.
My mum put herself in £50,000 of debt to service my sporting career. She did everything for me to pursue my dream.
Something my mum taught me years and years and years ago, is life’s just too short to carry around a great bucket-load of anger and resentment and bitterness and hatreds and all that sort of stuff.
I grew up in the same place as my mother, seeing the same trees my mother saw when she was at work; the flowers I picked were the flowers that my grandma planted. We have different styles; I wouldn’t make the same clothes that my mum made, or my grandma, but we have the same taste.
My dad came over from Ireland when he was 13 and lived on the streets, working on building sites, and has just retired from his job delivering furniture for John Lewis. My mum has had the same job for 30 years as a sales assistant at Marks and Spencer. They’ve always been really great; they just want me to be happy.
Nothing beats having this beautiful child look at me and say mum. I get soppy all the time.
And I used to buy ‘Fangoria,’ the horror magazine, which made my mum wonder if I was going to be a serial killer.
I really do feel guilty that I don’t visit me mum enough.
Mum left school at 15, and after a few years of modelling and dating jazz musicians, was married by 21 to my father, Mike Taylor, a journalist on the ‘Daily Mirror.’ They had my brother and me pretty quickly and had split up by the time I was two. I don’t really have any memories of them as a couple.
It would be nice if I did have a good relationship with my family, and yes, part of me longs to have a mum and dad who love and accept me for who I am. But if they never do, it’s OK.
I vaguely remember in the ’90s when Calvin Klein started making unisex CK1. Don’t worry about whether it’s made for men or women. Listen, we all like to put mum’s clothes on sometimes. What’s important is that it feels right for you.
I’m a mum. Cooking is something I have to do. It’s something I like to do.
My parents wanted to be actors. They tried for years but didn’t get anywhere. Then Mum got pregnant with me and they decided to make actors out of their children. You need your parents’ support if you’re going to do it. Otherwise who’s going to ferry you to castings?
My dad died 11 years ago, I don’t see much of my brothers, and I rarely speak to my mum. I don’t hold a grudge, but being separated in those early years clearly had an impact. Our relationship didn’t develop as it ought to.
My mum and dad used to make me stand up at dinner parties and sing to their friends.
I had a teacher at school who said, ‘We are going to do a play next year, and you’re in it.’ He said, ‘You should try out for the Royal Academy as an actor.’ I did and got in. I was 17. My mum wasn’t too happy, but it worked out OK.
My dad had died when I was four, so after my mum passed away, it was her parents – my amazing Nanna and Grandad – who took me in.
I feel very warm towards Mum and Dad for giving us the independence they did. My childhood, and the fact we didn’t have a TV, gave me a boundless imagination.
My mum was very good at making me take up musical instruments, so although there was no popular music she made me learn the recorder when I was three, the violin when I was five and the piano when I was seven. I took up the guitar myself when I was 14.
Living in the fishbowl is hard enough without worrying about a Secret Service that can’t keep mum.
Dad likes my food, but he probably thinks it’s too busy. He is a wonderful cook but only uses three ingredients. My mum rips out my articles and makes my recipes.
In five years’ time I’d like to be a mum. I want to settle down and have a family, definitely sooner rather than later. I’d like to have finished my second album too, maybe even my third. I’d like a sound that sticks around that other people are inspired by and that people know is me.
You can’t be a great mum and work the whole time necessarily; those two things aren’t ideal. We have an awful lot to work on and to debate about in relation to our working lives, because it isn’t working for a lot of people, particularly for a lot of women.
My mum loves cats so I took her to see the lion cubs which at about a year old are actually quite big. She wasn’t scared at all and went straight over and kissed one on the mouth! She thought they were just like her pets at home.
My mum was never strict. I was allowed to go out to clubs underage, watch TV, listen to whatever music I wanted to, and that made me not rebel. I have never touched a drug in my life.
Modeling is always something I’ve really admired because I’ve seen my mum and sister do it.
My mum’s father was a producer and her mother was an actress, so my mum was fully behind me going into acting.
I hope I’m very similar to my mum because she is a fantastic mother. She was driven as well as being incredibly protective and caring, and I think that is important.
When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.
To get the Red Bull junior drive was like a massive pressure off… I didn’t have to go around asking Mum and Dad to sell their house or ask friends for funding. The instant feeling was, ‘Oh wow, amazing.’
Cinema dominated the Fife coalfield towns. We lived in Lochgelly, but my mum was caught up in Hollywood. She was in love with the style and glamour. Sometimes she would come with me to the cinema in the afternoons, and she would say things like, ‘I wouldn’t mind a peck with Gregory.’
I always knew mum loved me – tough, look-after-yourself love, as if she knew she wouldn’t always be there.
Seven years is a long time, and he was there for me, when my mum died. He was very compassionate at that time. I couldn’t have found anyone better in that situation.
Mum was a tremendous Anglo-Catholic. Very impressive, actually. She made me go to church for years – I still don’t want to because of that.
Money and success haven’t really changed my beliefs or opinions over the years. When I was growing up, my mum and dad split when I was 13 or 14, during the early-Nineties recession. At that time, my dad went bankrupt, and it played a huge part in it all at home.
If you love somebody, you love them. My parents had a 25-year age gap between them and my mum was the breadwinner, my dad the house husband. I’m a strong believer that a good relationship can work, whatever the situation.
I definitely take after my dad, looks-wise. But my mum is my greatest inspiration. All the women in my family are amazing. They’re hilarious. I love funny people.
I think I’m far too hopeful and trusting. That’s something I got from my mum.
My mum left my dad when I was six months old, so I don’t know him at all. I had no male figures in my life, really. I had my godfather, but he’s more like a grandfather, so I was quite sheltered. I’ve never tried to find my father.
I just knew I had it, but my mum and dad were always great, and it was always a thing I had but a thing that wasn’t bad. It was just saying like, I have brown hair, I have brown eyes, and I’ve got cerebral palsy.
My dad shaped the footballing side of me, and Mum shaped me as a person. I’ve always been very close to her – we’ve only ever had one argument, and that was over something stupid when I was 13.
One of the first houses we lived in was like out of a fairy story. We had a stream that ran through our garden, and we played with the ducks – we locked them in my mum’s office, and they pooed everywhere. It was crazy, picking blackberries and mushrooms, rabbits running through your legs.
I grew up conservative because my mum was a conservative, and when I finally realized what conservatives were, I changed my mind immediately.
I’ve been to India a lot, ever since when my mum was in ‘Jewel In The Crown.’
My greatest inspiration… is my mum, who had a baby at the age of 42 and is still so fit, independent and beautiful.
My mum used to work in New York in Spike Lee’s shop; she did the outfits for the video for P.M. Dawn’s ‘Set Adrift on Memory Bliss.’
My mum is a social worker and my dad’s a roofer. My brother Nicky and I were the first two in my family to go to university.
I do chores around the house, but I don’t get an allowance for them. I wash the dishes and sweep the floor… I’m sweeping the floor quite a lot, and my mum always expects me to get a broom and swagger it across the floor all the time.
I’m a happy mum. I didn’t think it was in the cards for me, so I feel very blessed.
People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I’m called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career.
