Opera singer turned spiritual healer Charlotte Church brought son Dexter along with her to the BAFTA Cymru Awards and fans were quick to noticed he’s so much like his dad.
Singer Charlotte Church was joined by her son Dexter for a rare public outing, as the pair attended the BAFTA Cymru Awards on Sunday evening.
The 16-year-old has grown into a striking young man, bearing a strong resemblance to his former rugby star father, Gavin Henson, as he walked the red carpet alongside his mother. Charlotte was on hand to present the Television Drama Award at the International Convention Centre in Newport.
Already towering over his mum, Dexter looked sharp in a smart black suit for the event in south Wales. Charlotte and Gavin, the flamboyant fly-half, split in 2010 after five years together when Dexter was just an infant. Henson, once regarded as one of the most talented rugby players of his generation, now runs a pub in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Charlotte Church, the Voice of an Angel star who shot to fame at just 12, has stepped back from the spotlight since becoming a mother. She now embraces a quieter life as a sound healer at her own retreat, and recently spoke to author Izzy Judd on BBC Radio 3’s Unwind: The Music & Meditation Podcast about her creative journey.
“In my own personal journey, I found it was about believing in my own creativity,” she explained. “When you get commoditised at such a young age, my own creativity and artistry weren’t really centred. It was actually through setting up other things that I started to reclaim my creativity.
“But it wasn’t through music,” she admitted, “because I carried so much baggage around my voice, my songwriting, my musicianship. Creating and birthing other things into the world made me realise, ‘Ah, I’m really good at this, and I really enjoy it.’”
Charlotte Church hasn’t abandoned the spotlight entirely. She is set to appear on the new season of Celebrity Traitors, joining a star-studded lineup that includes Alan Carr, Stephen Fry, Joe Marler, Jonathan Ross, and Tom Daley. The multi-award-winning psychological game show will premiere on Wednesday.
Charlotte and Gavin Henson first fell in love two decades ago, but their relationship didn’t last. Just months after announcing their engagement in 2010, the couple split. Charlotte recalled, “When he proposed, I was overjoyed. It was amazing. I really was going to marry Gav and spend the rest of my life with him.
“But then he came back from Norway, and he’d changed, and I’d had time to think. We had both had a change of heart we were both of the same mind.”
Today, the former couple maintain a friendly relationship and remain actively involved in raising their now-teenage children. Henson has since found love again and married longtime partner Katie Wilson Mould in 2019.
Gavin Henson later admitted that he and Charlotte had been arguing for some time and recognised that splitting was the best decision for the sake of their children, though they now maintain a civil relationship. After retiring from rugby in 2019, he bought a pub in Wales, which he now runs with his wife, Katie.
Reflecting on the transition, Henson said: “I was coming to the end of my career, and the pub had been sitting here for 18 months, two years. It wasn’t ideal for the village, and I needed something to do after rugby to stay busy, rather than dwell on rugby and get depressed, as they say everyone does. But be careful what you wish for, because running this pub is so full-on. We want to feel like we’ve achieved something with it. We’re perfectionists it’s all about the detail.”