The struggles of Charlotte Church: She was the teen 'voice of an angel' worth £25million. Now, as her wellness retreat goes into 'hibernation' and she puts her home up for sale, we reveal how she's burned through her millions

Voice of an angel, wild child and – more recently – earth mother, Charlotte Church has earned many soubriquets since bursting on to the public stage at 11 years old.

It was nearly 30 years ago that the apple-cheeked girl from Wales gave a spine-tingling rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu over the telephone to the hosts of ITV’s This Morning, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, after her aunt called the show during a phone-in.

The following year Charlotte’s debut album, Voice Of An Angel, soared to No1; she sang for the Pope, for US President Bill Clinton and for Prince Charles to mark his 50th birthday.

By the time she hit her late teens the young soprano’s fortunes were said to have rocketed to £25million.

Since then, of course, the girl who once quipped that what she would really like as an 18th birthday gift was a £1million ruby-encrusted bra, has been on a patchwork quilt of a journey via pop star ambitions, a brief stint as a chat show host, through to strident pro-Palestinian activist and latterly drum-beating hostess of a wellness retreat.

Nothing, however, ever matched the success of her early years.

In the latest twist of Charlotte’s chequered career, three years after throwing open the doors of her wellness and healing retreat in an idyllic corner of the Welsh countryside, the 40-year-old mother-of-three has announced her latest venture is going into ‘hibernation’.

It was with much fanfare that The Dreaming opened in 2023, after a two-year mission to turn Rhydoldog House, the former home of fashion designer Laura Ashley, into a luxury venue. There was even a television series documenting the renovations, Charlotte Church’s Dream Build.

Church had already co-founded The Awen Project – a free-to-attend forest school, in Cardiff, where pupils are given ‘creative freedom’ to learn and study through a network of ‘tribes’ – in 2019.

But when she saw Rhydoldog House shortly after having her third child (daughter Frida with her musician husband Jonathan Powell) in 2020, she was newly inspired. She budgeted £500,000 for renovations, but the figure went out of the window when works began.

‘I’ve blown my life savings’ she said in an interview, shortly before the retreat opened, admitting she had a £750,000 mortgage and her parents had given her £300,000 ‘because I gave them a whack of money when I was a teenager’.

For the woman who was once Britain’s youngest millionaire – aged 14 she was worth £10million – Church’s fortunes now seemed rather straitened.

She sold her Cardiff mansion in 2024 for around £2million, downsizing to a semi-detached property in the seaside resort of Barry, best known for the hit TV comedy Gavin & Stacey. ‘I’m not a millionaire anymore,’ she told an interviewer the same year.

The status of the singer’s financial fortunes was underlined by the statement sent to those making enquiries about The Dreaming this week.

‘After five years [sic] of unfaltering practice, tending with diligence to the dreams of the land and our guests, we announce with hearts-a-brim that The Dreaming will be pausing its work at Rhydoldog from December 2026.’

What on earth could have gone awry for Charlotte, whose public positioning on Palestine – she likes to wear a keffiyeh and has fundraised and performed at Palestinian solidarity events – has garnered some controversy?

Sadly, it seems that despite a swathe of five-star reviews, The Dreaming has been hit by the same nightmares faced by so many business owners. ‘Unfortunately, we have found ourselves at the mercy of the economy like all small businesses, and the situation has become unsustainable,’ a spokesman said, in slightly less flowery language, last week.

A drop in bookings and ‘hikes in business rates’ had all had a stark impact. ‘We simply cannot continue to operate as we have been,’ the statement went on. A look at figures published on Companies House reveals that company debts have long been racking up.

The Dreaming’s first set of published accounts, for 2023, before its official opening, reveals there was already a £577,000 debt owing to creditors. By 2024 the debt had grown to £750,000; by March this year it stood at £910,000.

That is not to say that Church’s business is on her uppers. More than £500,000 of that last figure was owed to another of the star’s business entities, Charlotte Church Ltd, which only two weeks ago changed its name to Fire of Brigid Ltd.

Does the new company name – a homage to a sacred, perpetual flame of Celt history – have a symbolic significance?

While Fire of Brigid’s coffers are not as flush as some might expect, they do appear to indicate £3million in capital and reserves. Who knows if The Dreaming’s hibernation will be of a permanent nature.

In the meantime, the last planned ‘Song of the Soul’ experience – a vocal empowerment retreat costing £1,550 for five days – is due to take place next week, delivered, says the website, ‘by Charlotte herself’.

The venue says it has hosted some 3,000 people on retreats since the mansion (complete with helicopter landing pad) threw open its doors.

However, not all of those will have paid full fees to stay in rooms with names such as The Womb, a ‘celebration of womanhood’ designed to make you feel ‘swaddled’, including a pink shower made of tadelakt (a natural, lime-based plaster indigenous to Marrakech) that Church once likened to ‘a very large and unusual-shaped vagina’.

Church promoted a ‘pay-what-you-can’ scheme, along with free-to-attend events for NHS workers and ‘activists’, which cannot have helped with the bills.

Unfortunately for the business’s finances she had no interest in chasing the luxury spa crowd. ‘I f****** hate all the pious wellness industry s****,’ she declared last year. ‘So much of that billion-dollar pile of crap says “do this”, “buy that”, “subscribe to me”, ‘Swallow a pill”, and this result will happen. It’s all bollocks.’

Standing in her verdant grounds as she spoke, she added: ‘We’re not breaking even yet here. I’ve taken a lot of financial risk. But I fell in love and that was it.’

How that risk feels now is unclear, but Church – who has two older children from a five-year relationship with rugby player Gavin Henson – recently put her four-bedroomed family home in Barry on the market.

When she and Jonathan moved into the town referred to as ‘Barrybados’ by locals, it came as a surprise to neighbours. ‘It’s a bit of a mystery [why she’s moving],’ says one. ‘She hasn’t been here that long and has spent a lot of money on the place.

‘Charlotte had some lovely furniture delivered when she arrived and then vans would turn up to deliver all sorts of exotic plants. That sort of fits with her lifestyle.’

Another neighbour adds: ‘They are a lovely family and everyone can see Charlotte is a brilliant mum. She keeps to herself but she knocked everyone’s door a couple of weeks ago to apologise over a bit of noise that went on.

‘I thought it was very gracious. She apologised to all the neighbours which was nice.

‘But there was no need, no one heard anything.’

So where next for Charlotte, who was a contestant on the last series of Celebrity Traitors?

Last month, Charlotte told the Sort Your Life Out podcast she had been peeling back the layers of her former life.

‘The designer shoes, the clothes that I used to have, that’s all gone to charity shops. And I’ve just been doing that, shedding over the last 15 years, really. And it feels really good.’

Whether The Dreaming becomes another of those layers shed, remains to be seen.

As the singer said when it was all beginning: ‘It’s exploration. Have a go and see what works.’