SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR reveals the one story she was determined to share in her ...

SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR reveals the one story she was determined to share in her ...
SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR reveals the one story she was determined to share in her ...

As a teenager, I thought I’d be famous. Cringey to write, but true. I’d even practised my autograph on my friends’ school exercise books. 

I was confident I’d never have to write my own life story, and that Madonna had the right idea: have books written about you, but don’t write them yourself. Well, I’m not Madonna, and I’m not that famous. So here it is. My story, told by me.

I was born on April 10, 1979, to a 25-year-old dad, Robin Bextor, a journalist and TV producer, and 23-year-old Janet Ellis, an actress and TV presenter. I don’t really have any memories of my parents happy together, as their marriage fell apart when I was four.

Mum was a Blue Peter presenter by then, and Dad had started directing That’s Life, a big Saturday night TV show starring Esther Rantzen. By the time I was five, their divorce was official.

They lived a few minutes’ walk from each other in West London. Mum and I were in a little flat on the same road as my school, and Dad was in our old home. I found it hard to go from house to house. 

Originally they split their time with me 50-50, but after a while it changed to me being with Mum most of the time and Dad every other weekend.

As a teenager, I thought I’d be famous. I was confident I’d never have to write my own life story, and that Madonna had the right idea: have books written about you, but don’t write them yourself. Well, I’m not Madonna, and I’m not that famous. So here it is. My story, told by me

As a teenager, I thought I’d be famous. I was confident I’d never have to write my own life story, and that Madonna had the right idea: have books written about you, but don’t write them yourself. Well, I’m not Madonna, and I’m not that famous. So here it is. My story, told by me

Every memory I have of anything related to custody invokes feelings of guilt and stress. School holidays were split between them equally, but when there was an odd number of nights, arguments ensued about who would have me for that extra night. 

I know it is the mark of loving parents that they wanted me with them, but I felt incredible pressure not to upset them by showing any preference. I didn’t want either parent unhappy, so I would hide how I felt and say what I thought they wanted to hear.

I used to wish I had a sibling so that another human could experience what I was going through. But out of one unhappy marriage I got two happy ones, so I’m glad they found my step-parents, John and Polly. 

I honestly feel I’ve been raised by four people, not two, and strange as it may sound, I can see bits of all four of them reflected in me sometimes. Nature and nurture all at once.

By the age of 19 I was no longer an only child, but the oldest of six: three sisters and two brothers. That’s quite the leap from those early years on my own. My youngest siblings were only six and seven when I had my first baby at 23, so they are close in age.

I love the fact my family ended up so big and sprawling. I like having so much going on. Good job the tattoo on my arm just says ‘Family’ and not the names of those within it – the list would be down to my wrist by now. 

CLOSE: Sophie Ellis-Bextor with her mother then-Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis in 1989

CLOSE: Sophie Ellis-Bextor with her mother then-Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis in 1989

For me, family is everything. I now have five sons of my own – five small humans to nurture and nourish to adulthood.

If I were to list the way my priorities have shifted over the years into a chart rundown it would go something like this:

In at No 1 – thinking about the kids!

Down 30 places – being cool.

Up five – being kind.

Down 10 – any kind of toxic relationship.

Down 50 – time for myself. That’s parenthood!

I wasn't sure whether I was going to include this bit, but this is my platform to write about whatever I want and the things that have shaped me. 

This is one of those dark and murky events in my life which I haven’t told many people about, but I owe it myself to put it out there, so here goes.

I definitely bear the scars from my first experiences with men and sex. When I was a teenager I knew I fancied boys, but I seemed far behind my friends. 

At 15, I felt inexperienced and prudish, while they all seemed to be getting off with boys every weekend and quite a few had lost their virginity.

By the time I was 16 I had snogged only a couple of boys and had never had a boyfriend. 

But it was around then I started going to a local indie club in the hope of getting my musical career off the ground. I was already deciding that life as a singer was for me.

Through the club nights there, I met girls outside school, including two sisters who seemed worldly, experienced and well connected. Here was my chance to shake off my Enid Blyton persona.

They didn’t see me as a prude, but they did see me as a bit of a project. 

‘Have a one-night stand,’ they said. ‘It’s easy. You just bring a man home with you and then sleep with him.’ 

This seemed so grown-up to me. I’d read in magazines about one-night stands. Clearly, being a grown woman meant being able to do this.

Not too long after, when I was 17, I was out at a gig with a group of friends, including the sisters.

By now I was in my first band, theaudience, and although we hadn’t yet done a gig – we had just recorded demos and rehearsed – I was so happy to be hanging out with fellow musicians.

STAR IN THE MAKING: A teenage Sophie, just as she was beginning to carve out a career as a singe

STAR IN THE MAKING: A teenage Sophie, just as she was beginning to carve out a career as a singe

At the after-show party, I found myself talking to an older man who was in a band. He was their guitarist and he seemed to like me. I felt flattered. 

I mentioned I was doing A-level history and he said: ‘I did history. Would you like to come back to my flat and see my history books?’ Probably the lamest chat-up line in the world, but I went in a taxi with him back to his flat.

Let’s call him Jim, shall we? Once back at the flat, Jim actually did show me his history books. I found myself putting one about Napoleon III in my bag. I kept it for a while afterwards, but seeing it always made me feel sad and used.

You see, Jim and I started kissing and before I knew it we were on his bed and he took off my knickers. I heard myself saying ‘No’ and ‘I don’t want to’, but it didn’t make any difference.

He didn’t listen to me and he had sex with me and I felt so ashamed. It was how I lost my virginity and I felt stupid.

I remember staring at Jim’s bookcases and thinking: I just have to let this happen now.

After it was over, I lay on the bed feeling odd, trying to process what had just happened. He fell asleep and I slept, too, not really knowing how to get myself home in the middle of the night. 

I woke up after a short while and I can remember angrily picking up my clothes from the floor while saying to myself, ‘I said “No” ’. I went and sat in his kitchen, watching TV, feeling dazed.

After a while, Jim came into the room. ‘Oh, I didn’t think you’d still be here,’ he said. Again, I felt stupid. I didn’t know I was supposed to have left. I didn’t know I was supposed to just go afterwards.

On the way home I wondered if everyone else on the Tube could tell what had happened to me. I felt grubby, but also unsure about my own feelings as I had no other experience to compare it with.

At the time, the way rape was talked about wasn’t to do with consent – it was something you associated with aggression. But no one had pinned me down or shouted at me to make me comply, so why should I feel so violated?

I have thought so much about why I wanted to write about this. My life is happy now and I would not say that I felt overly traumatised at the time, and yet I feel as if the culture that surrounded me – the things I saw and read and the way sex was discussed – made me believe I didn’t have a case.

My experience was not violent. All that happened was I wasn’t listened to. Of the two people there, one said yes, the other said no, and the yes person did it anyway.

The older I’ve become, the more stark that 29-year-old man ignoring 17-year-old me has seemed.

I think it’s telling that when I came to write this book, this story was the one I wrote first. By going back to that room and to that time when I felt I didn’t have a voice, I can now give myself that voice.

I am not interested in naming and shaming the guy involved – I’ve Googled him and he seems to be happily going about his business and is in what looks like a happy long-term relationship. But I do want to encourage anyone to realise where the line between right and wrong lies.

I’m a mother of five young men now, and I introduce the concept of consent pretty early. 

I want to raise considerate, kind people who can take other people’s feelings into account. I want them to actively want the other person to be happy, too, rather than just stopping because they have to.

PREV Ron DeSantis slams liberal New York and California for doing nothing about the ... trends now
NEXT In news vacuum, rumours and concern swirl over Catherine mogaznewsen