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Billie Piper has looked back on her experience of growing up in the Nineties in “horror”, admitting the thought of her young children growing up in that environment “blows my head apart”.
Speaking at an event to mark the launch of an awareness campaign launched by domestic abuse charity Refuge, the 42-year-old Doctor Who actor was asked to reflect on her experience as a teenager in the Nineties, and whether her feelings about that time have been heightened since she became a mother.
“I look back at a lot of that time in my life in absolute horror,” she said.
“I was just living in an adult world that was very different to the world that we’re living in now. The thought of my kids….just blows my head apart. I just cannot imagine it whatsoever.”
Piper rose to fame in 1998 when she released her debut single “Because We Want To” aged 15, before landing a successful acting career. She married TV presenter Chris Evans in 2001 when she was aged 18 and Evans was 35.
The actor now shares her sons Winston, 12, and Eugene, eight, with her ex-husband Laurence Fox, and her daughter Tallulah, four, with Johnny Lloyd.
Piper said she has been appalled by the misogynistic messaging depicted in films released even a decade ago.
“It’s not even just the Nineties,” she said. “It’s as recent for me when I’m watching movies, it’s like 10 years ago. You kind of think, actually, I don’t want to sit and watch this with my kids because all the messaging is, f*** women.”
“You don’t have to go as far back to find some really, really unhelpful stuff,” she said.
Elsewhere at the event, Piper said that misogyny and violence against women cannot be tackled by “telling young boys they’re all awful”.
When asked about how young boys and girls can foster healthier relationships from an early age, Piper told the audience that she is hugely concerned about the external influences facing young boys.
“I think it is incredibly important that we educate our sons as well as our daughters in how to treat people each other respectfully [and] equally,” she said.
“The education [on domestic abuse] has to extend to young boys. You can’t dismiss them or somehow shame them in a way that pushes them further towards these really toxic figures, because that’s really easily done.”
She spoke about her own difficulty with navigating her children’s online consumption, saying: “There’s also an argument ‘don’t give your kid a phone’ or ‘don’t let them go online’. But you know how realistic is that?”
“It’s very hard to put policing techniques on the phone and it’s hard because you’ve got to be savvy. But I think it starts with your messaging. It doesn’t start with telling boys that they’re all awful. That’s not going to work. There’s been a problem with that historically.”
Piper stars in the short film called Make the World a Refuge, which explores the different forms that domestic abuse can take as the actor reads out real-life testimonies from survivors.
The campaign video comes as The Independent has launched an appeal with Refuge to raise £300,000 to build a safe home for women escaping abusive partners.
The charity reports that one in four women in England and Wales will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime but there is a national shortage of safe spaces, which means a woman desperate to escape is turned away from a refuge every two hours across the country.
The Brick by Brick campaign has been backed by a host of high-profile celebrities including Dame Helen Mirren, Dame Joanna Lumley, Sir Patrick Stewart, Olivia Colman and David Morrissey, who have been calling for donations to create a secure home for domestic abuse victims.
Be a brick, buy a brick and donate here or text BRICK to 70560 to donate £15.
