Proms star Nicola: Charlotte Church parading in her lingerie does NOT empower women
FEMALE classical music stars are put under too much pressure to sex up their image to broaden their appeal, one of Britain’s top violinists has claimed.
Nicola Benedetti, who captivated audiences at last year’s Proms, also poured scorn on the idea that performing in revealing outfits was somehow ‘empowering’ for performers – and cited Charlotte Church as an example of how stars were manipulated under the guise of feminism.
Church started her career as a classical singer, but switched to pop music at the age of 19. She cavorted in a corset in the video to her 2005 single Call My Name, but later said she regretted baring her flesh.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, Scots-born Ms Benedetti said: ‘It’s funny how it’s done. They make it seem like it’s your choice – and every woman, if they feel good about how they look, is going to have a percentage of a desire to show off.
‘But then its gets cloaked in all this empowerment stuff: “I’m a free woman and I can do what I like.”’
She credited Church with being ‘unusually candid’ about her regrets, adding: ‘If somebody like Charlotte Church looks back on the music videos she did where she’s in underwear and she feels like she was coerced into that, how is that empowering in the end?’
Ms Benedetti, now 28, said she was pressured into presenting a sexy image to cross over into the pop world after she won Young Musician of the Year in 2004, when she was just 16. ‘I turned down enough of those things that everybody gave up asking,’ she said. ‘I had a very clear idea of who I am. And the minute they start to see they can’t mould you into exactly what they want, the conversation dries up.’
And her stance has done her career no harm, having twice won a classical music Brit award.