Billie Piper discusses dysfunctional relationships

Billie Piper “knows about dysfunctional relationships”.

Although the 38-year-old actress is loved up with partner Johnny Lloyd, the father of her two-year-old daughter Tallulah, she admitted that she has been in some less than ideal relationships in the past.

Billie – who has sons Winston, 12, and Eugene, eight, with her ex-husband Laurence Fox -told The Guardian newspaper: “I know about dysfunctional relationships. I know about what it costs to be a woman.”

Billie also revealed that she used to lie about having therapy “because of [her] upbringing” but is now proud to reveal she has sought help.

She said: “It’s just a general sort of scoffing at the unpacking of your problems. Especially if you’ve been successful, it’s this sort of, ‘Why do you need therapy?’ That narrative. Now I’m that really annoying person who suggests therapy to everyone. I do totally get that thing of going: ‘Is this a problem, or am I a problem? Should I just use stoicism and swallow it down?’ And sometimes that can see you through – it just doesn’t last. Because the anger comes back up. Just this inexplicable rage.”

Meanwhile, Billie first found fame as a popstar at the age of 15 and although she doesn’t regret it, she admitted she has started to think more about exploitation and what being famous does to young women.

She said: “Since I’ve had a little girl, I think about it a lot. But absolutely, yeah. Although it’s actually one of the few things in my life I don’t feel really angry towards. I don’t feel anger towards what I saw or what I experienced, but I do look back at it with a – a very curious eyebrow. It just seems so wildly unsafe. I do slightly despair, and I want to feel for that version of myself a bit more than maybe I have allowed myself to, in the past. You know, there were also some brilliant things that came out of that time in my life that have really set me up quite well now. But it’s not something that I would feel comfortable showing my children, as an experience.”