A successful music career (being the youngest person at 15 to gain a number one album), followed by both a commercially (Doctor Who and Secret Diary of a Call Girl) and critically (the Young Vic play Yerma) thriving acting career and two healthy, happy babies - in many ways, Billie Piper has had it all.
Though Piper has been divorced twice, she is still close friends with her first husband, the presenter Chris Evans.
However, the pressure to have and be everything still gets to Piper. Perhaps the feeling is exacerbated by the ending of her eight-year marriage to fellow actor Lawrence Fox, or perhaps the feeling follows you no matter your successes.
The actress spoke to her close friend Lucy Prebble for Stylist magazine. Prebble wrote Secret Diary of a Call Girl, which starred Piper for its duration.
Prebble notes in the article that neither herself, nor Piper, pulled off the dark show they wanted from the story of Belle. So, ten years later, they are creating a new TV show together, 'about a woman in her 30s going through a life crisis. That's something we both can relate to.'
Piper explained to her friend and collaborator, 'It feels like you have to be fully established by your 30s. But now the world's not interested, because you're not 20 anymore.'
'New-age' feminism was something she took umbrage with as well, namely the feeling of needing to 'have it all':
I just think some of this new-age female emancipation can often land us in that place in our 30s where we feel, I'm supposed to have this, this and this... I'm supposed to be successful and business-savvy and coquettish and making cash and a slag in the bedroom and well-read and I'm supposed to be on top of all of these things, because it's my time.
She continued,
I just feel f**ked by this amount of pressure! It feels like it is unnatural to be able to do all of those things. I think it's shaky in its brand, do you know what I mean?
If someone as talented and beautiful as Billie Piper is struggling with this notion then we're afraid there is no hope for the rest of us.
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
