Entertainment

Paloma Faith: I don’t see what’s wrong with a little boy wearing a dress

The Just Be star is raising her child gender neutral.
The Just Be star is raising her child gender neutral. The Just Be star is raising her child gender neutral.

Paloma Faith has claimed parents should let their children wear what they want – even if that means allowing their son to wear a dress.

The 37-year-old said she believed children go through phases and should be allowed to explore what clothes they feel comfortable in.

London-born Faith welcomed her first child in December 2016 with French artist Leyman Lahcine but the pair decided not to reveal its gender.

Paloma Faith has not revealed the gender of her child (Keziah Quarcoo)

She said she planned to raise her child as she had been, and put her success in the music industry down to having been taught to ignore gender boundaries.

Faith told the Press Association: “I’m raising my child the way I was raised.

“It’s one of the main reasons I am the success I am. I was raised in a way that made me feel like anything was possible and that gender was not an issue when it came to me striving to be who I wanted to be.

“As a kid, my favourite toys were Lego. I hated dolls. I thought they were awful. I used to cry looking at them. I liked teddy bears and I liked Lego.

“I think we have to leave it open to your child to decide. There’s nothing wrong with any of it.

“If I had a son and he started saying to me, ‘I want to wear that dress’, I don’t see why that’s a problem at that moment in his life.

The London-born singer appears in a new advert for car manufacturer Skoda (Keziah Quarcoo)

“But that doesn’t mean that in 20 years’ time he’s still going to want to wear a dress. You go through phases and we have to accept that.”

Alongside The Kingdom Choir, Lady Leshurr, Alexis Ffrench and The Sherlocks, Faith fronts Skoda’s I Gotta Be Me campaign championing individuality.

Each has recorded a cover of the 1968 Sammy Davis Jr song for the campaign, which launches on April 20 on Britain’s Got Talent.

Faith added that young women in the music industry had been “sold a mad idea” that they had “to get their kit off” in order to be successful.

She admitted to feeling pessimistic about the future and that it felt like “one step forward, two steps back”.

The singer said: “There’s still a lot of women who think it is still necessary to get their kit off to sell records, especially with social media.

The Kingdom Choir sign Sony record deal – London
The Kingdom Choir sign Sony record deal – London The Kingdom Choir also appear in the campaign (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

“I think that it is tragic. I think people have been sold a mad idea that you are taking back your sexuality.

“I don’t think that is true. I think there is a difference between sometimes doing that and it being every single post that you ever put up, and every video, and when it is completely irrelevant to the subject of the song.

“But I also think that sometimes, as a feminist, I might have been naked in videos. I did a campaign once for underwear, but that was because it was for underwear.

“And the naked thing was about being vulnerable and exposed, so it was relevant. It wasn’t like, ‘Right, now I’m going to be naked all the time to sell some more records’.”

Listen to the artists’ renditions at www.skoda.co.uk/discover/IGottaBeMe