Superstar singer wants her children to share her love of music

BY RICK FULTON r.fulton@dailyrecord.co.uk even dragged into David Beckham’s hissy fit at not being knighted, when his emails branding her OBE a “f ****** joke” were leaked.

But if Katherine is bracing herself for a backlash about going back to work too soon, she’s not showing it.

“I never put any pressure on myself,” she said.

“When had Aaliyah, it was, I ‘When will you feel like going back to work? Will you want to take six months or a year?’ “But having a daughter first, I wanted to show her that mummy was passionate and dedicated to something, and I think then having Xander you want to continue that. “You want him to be able to come and see an orchestra at the Albert Hall (where the Classic BRITs were held) and think that’s normal and a lovely experience. It just felt like the right time for me.” Katherine, who came second in the 2012 series of Dancing with the Stars, the US version of Strictly, also looks great. Rather than any big diet or hours in the gym, she claims she got the baby weight off by “just being an active mum”.

She said: “I take them out walking in the pram. I’m not really one to just sit around.

“But my daughter is so busy, there isn’t time to sit down, so I’m just running around with her.”

Katherine doesn’t think she’ll have a third child, and is thankful she didn’t have the baby blues.

“I luckily did not,” she said. “I’m very thankful that I have a lovely mum. It’s great, you do feel like, as a woman, you’ve got a support system of people who are checking that you are OK and I’ve always really appreciated that. Because it is full-on, but I’m really enjoying it.”

Aaliyah, who likes Frozen and is “definitely a performer” seems to be liking the new arrival. Katherine reckons it’s because she always said, “Aaliyah is having a baby brother,” not, “Mummy is having a baby.”

“She’s not threatened,” she said. “Whenever he cries she says, ‘Mummy, my baby needs some milk.’ And I’m not going to correct it. She loves him. So that worked out quite well. It was a fluke, I think.”

Of course having a mum with one of the best voices in the world is a bonus for the kids, especially when she sings them lullabies.

But she laughed: “When I used to warm up, my daughter used to cry because I think it’s so loud. He’s more blasé about it.”

There will be lots of warm-ups in the coming months as Katherine promotes new album Guiding Light, out on November 30.

She also goes on tour next year, and An Evening with Katherine Jenkins comes to Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on May 2. It will be good to have her back. She is the UK’s best-selling classical artist of the last 25 years, according to Classic FM, and she made chart history with her last album, Celebration, when it became her 12th Classical No1. Her albums have also made the UK top 10 eight times.

For her 12th album, Katherine has covered songs like Make Me a Channel of Your Peace, Morning Has Broken and Never Enough, from The Greatest Showman, which she performed at the Classic BRITs. But there is also the more surprising choice of Blinded by Your Grace, by grime star Stormzy.

The Songs of Praise presenter said: “The idea of the album was doing something that was reflective and inspirational and spiritual. I wanted to be inclusive of everybody and I was looking at songs that fitted into that category.

“When I listen to Blinded By Your Grace Part I and Part II, I was thinking, ‘How can I interpret this?’

“You listen to the lyrics and you think about them in a spiritual way. They are really beautiful.”

Eight years ago, Katherine was a judge and mentor on Popstar to Operastar. She now hopes to carry on her mission to keep classical music popular with her own animated kids’ TV show, Symphony Street, which she created with her husband. She plays Katherine Conductor in the show, where the characters are instruments.

As well as being something for her own children to enjoy, she created the show as a reaction to cuts in music funding in schools.

She said: “I think children should have access to music and art.”

Light is out on November 30. Katherine plays Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on May 2, 2019. Tickets via Ticketmaster.co.uk.