Feminism has abandoned us halfway through its process
Paloma Faith talks to NAOMI CLARKE about exploring her separation, motherhood and the expectations our society places on women for her latest album
PALOMA FAITH’S heartbreak anthems have soundtracked many a turbulent relationship and breakup over the last decade.
The free-spirited north Londoner has bared her soul on ballads like Only Love Can Hurt Like This and Picking Up The Pieces, but her latest album, The Glorification Of Sadness, delves deeper than ever as she explores separating from her partner of nearly 10 years and becoming a single mother.
She announced her split from French artist Leyman Lahcine – with whom she shares two daughters, aged seven and nearly three – in August last year. While album tracks like Divorce offer an honest insight into her heartache, she channels an energy of female empowerment in singles Bad Woman and How You Leave A Man. “The empowerment bit is wonderful,” says Paloma. “But there are songs that are a little bit more exposing and emotionally difficult. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, really.”
The singer admits she is nervous as she releases her sixth studio album, her first in four years, fearing she will “face the judgment” due to it being so personal.
“When I was writing it, it felt very cathartic,” the 42-year-old says. “But now it feels like the process of promoting it, it’s slowing down the possibility of me recovering emotionally because it’s like picking the scab off all the time.”
Paloma has been open about how having children impacted her relationship with her partner. “So much changes in terms of expectations of each other,” she explains. “I think that the reason why our relationship is great at the moment is because we don’t expect anything now. Probably the key to a successful relationship is no expectations, but it’s also impossible.” The singer says she is proud of how they are handling co-parenting their two girls and that they have got “a lot of respect and love for each other”.
However, she has still been riding the emotional rollercoaster that comes with a break-up.
“It’s up and down,” she reflects. “I think it’s a much more drawn-out recovery process than I’ve been used to. You can’t go and do all of your old tricks to recover.
“You can’t just go out and get a new boyfriend, it’s just all a bit inappropriate now, because there are kids.”
On the album, she explores this complex cocktail of emotions and suggests, in How You Leave a Man, that the best course of action is to dramatically pack your bags and drive off into the sunset – a fantasy she knows cannot become a reality. The record is also interspersed with interludes in which she expresses her thoughts on guilt and shame. Among those issues was the added pressure she felt as a mother-of-two in her situation. “Our expectations of women in society are just, maybe, too much,” Paloma says. “We expect women to be so devoted and giving and martyred. The reality is we’re individuals, we’re humans, as well. There is so much more pressure on us to be perfection than there is on men.” While there has been a degree of progress with women’s rights over the years, Paloma says she feels, “feminism has abandoned us halfway through its process”.
“We’re quite overloaded now. We wanted equality, equality is now packaged as what is essentially too much for us. Too much expectation, and too much mental load, and too much actual practical load as well, because we’re raising children, working all hours...
“We’re condensing all of our personal time into their sleeping hours and that means working a lot of the time as well.
“It just feels like an overwhelm. And then sometimes people are like, ‘Oh, she was a bit snappy’, and it’s like, anyone would be snappy with this much expectation on them or this much workload. I really don’t get much time for peace on my own.”
Alongside her musical career, Paloma has also dipped her toe into the acting world, appearing in films including 2007’s St Trinian’s and 2009 horror Dread, as well as the DC Comics drama Pennyworth. She offered her insight on the music industry to rising stars when she was judge on The Voice UK and on The Voice Kids.
She feels there has been a positive change in how social issues are approached, but thinks the actions are all “very conscious”.
“When you talk about race relations, LGBTQ+ situations, women’s rights, there is an effort, in creative culture at least, to try to move forward,” she adds. “There is some degree of it being tokenised at the moment, but it has to go through that process in order for it to become second nature.”
We’re chatting a few days after women dominated the Grammy awards and after Raye made Brit Awards history by landing seven nominations. This came after the 2023 ceremony was criticised for a lack of female representation in the gender-neutral British artist category, which prompted organisers to increase the number of nominees in the category.
How does Paloma feel about the shows honouring women? “I don’t want to pat on the back, I don’t think anyone does,” she says. “But I really like that it’s happening and I think, long may it continue.” Cautiously optimistic, she adds that she hopes such recognition becomes “ingrained” in society “rather than just something you do for a year to prove a point”.
It’s a much more drawn-out recovery process than I’ve been used to. You can’t go and do all of your old tricks to recover. Paloma Faith on her separation from Leyman Lahcine, right