Charlotte Church had earned a £25million fortune when she was still just a teenager but has now claimed she is ‘not a millionaire any longer’ after years of splurging on a luxury lifestyle.
Since the height of her fame in the mid-2000s, the former child pop star has spent her fortune on a £500,000 lavish manor with ex Gavin Henson, an £800,000 yacht, an Ibiza girls’ holiday with a £10,000 bill and, more recently, a £1.5 million hippie retreat.
Despite the 38-year-old telling of her financial misfortune and having to downsize her home, it can be revealed she is sitting on assets of over £3.5 million in one of her companies and made a tidy profit of £700,000 on the sale of her house.
Charlotte Church Limited, of which she is the sole director, saw its capital and reserves grow from £3.36million to £3.5million in accounts, which were filed last month.
However, her The Dreaming Limited, which owns the woman-focused countryside retreat which she recently launched to paying guests, has net liabilities of £551,000.
The business is still in its early days after it threw open its doors in April 2023 due to number of planning and renovation setbacks.
The accounts, which were filed in December 2023, cover the period up to March 2023, so before it opened for business.
Charlotte’s musical break came at age 11 when she sang Andrew Lloyd Webber ‘s ‘Pie Jesu’ over the telephone on the television show This Morning in 1997, followed by her performance on ITV’s Big, Big Talent Show in 1997.
It was estimated that she had a £25 million fortune as a teenager. After a period of riotous living, particularly with her rugby star first husband Gavin Henson, that was said to have dwindled to £11 million.
Now in an interview with Closer magazine, she says that she feels relatively skint.
It’s surprising given that only in March this year she sold The Spinney, her mansion in Wales for £2 million. She bought it in 2010 for £1.3 million.
However she has poured funds into Rhyldoldog House in Powys, now renamed The Dreaming, which is open as a retreat. Some of the renovations were captured in the ITV show The Build. She said that it cost her £1.5 million to get it up to scratch.
In the interview she said: ‘I am not a millionaire anymore,’ she said. ‘What mattered to me when I bought The Spinney is it was absolutely beautiful and close to the forest and it was a big mansion house.
‘We had a school there for a bit and a studio. When it is used by the community, it makes sense, but when it is not used, it doesn’t. We want to be in the mainframe and be involved in life and what it feels like.’
‘I was very fairy-tale-like and then it gets into this dark, twisted fairy tale,’
‘When I think back on it now, the path I am on is very interesting in the way I reflect rather than the way I look at what happened to me.’
She added: ‘When I made money, I did say to my dad when I was 14, ‘I am not sure about this showbiz stuff. I am really not having a good time’ and he was like, ‘Just stick at it as we don’t get these opportunities’.’ she continued.
‘I did get to a stage in my teenage years, about 16 or 17, when I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can sing this s** t anymore’, but going around the world and singing in the biggest concert halls was phenomenal and I will be grateful for that experience.
‘It’s the biggest tool for healing and the biggest tool we have for togetherness.’
Charlotte also revealed she was making music again after decades away, saying it was ‘her soul’ and that the money has allowed her to be free to try new things,
‘Now I am able to do things that I am passionate about,’ she said.
‘I have this retreat in mid Wales and it is lush. It’s just the way my brain works, thinking about society and thinking about utopian futures and what the world needs.
‘I feel deep at the core of my purpose, it is about healing and it always has been singing classical songs. People felt soothed by that. It is a deep part of my purpose.’
According to documents at Companies House, Church is also the director of Chick Flicks Limited which has £51,000 in net assets.
She performed in front of the likes of President Bill Clinton, Pope John Paul II and the late Queen and King Charles – earning her £25million.
Ms Church couldn’t access her fortune until she was 18 but when she finally did the singer did not hold back and stated she would buy a £1million ruby-encrusted bra to make the occasion.
It set Ms Church off on a spending spree and she splashed out on more than £10,000 on a trip to Ibiza with her girlfriends paying for a private villa, buying all their drinks and hiring a personal chauffeur.
When dating the Welsh rugby star Gavin Henson, she bought a home in Cardiff worth £500,000 at the age of 20 and installed a bar at the bottom to indulge in drinking sessions with her boyfriend. The later sold the house for
Dubbed the Posh and Beck of rugby, the couple bought a £800,000 yacht moored in Swansea Marina before they split in 2010. The cruiser was sold for slightly less than they paid for it.
But in 2013, she bought Mr Henson a five-bedroom property so that he could live closer to their children Ruby and Dexter.
In 2014 her wealth had dropped to £11million and she said in a documentary: ‘I will have to work for the rest of my life, not because I want to but because I have to.
‘The tax man is looking at my accounts wondering where I’m hiding all my money.’
Meanwhile, the former Voice of an Angel singer bought Rhydoldog House with her husband Jonathan Powell, whom she shares a four-year-old daughter Freya with, in 2021 and turned it into a retreat for paying guests to ‘reconnect with themselves and the natural world’.
Environmental and planning bigwigs expressed particular concerns about her plans for treating and disposing of waste from four proposed log cabins, with the ecology department of the local council warning of the deficiencies of many ‘private sewage treatment systems’.
The seven-bedroom mansion has three storeys, a helicopter landing and a 200-year-old barn on its 47 acres.
It is wellness retreat with cycling, archery, foraging, hiking and strength and conditioning lessons available – with a hot tub, plunge pool and outdoor cinema.
Charlotte recently launched her first podcast, Kicking Back with the Cardiffians on BBC Sounds, with new episodes available weekly. On the podcast she discusses her Welsh heritage, family bonds, her working class identity and growing up in Cardiff.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
