Lulu has admitted she was ‘afraid of sex’ while growing up in the sixties, at the peak of her career.
In an exclusive excerpt from her upcoming memoir If Only You Knew, set for release on September 25 to coincide with her tour, Lulu openly discussed her fears of intimacy following her revelation that she is an alcoholic in recovery.
Lulu, now 76, shot to fame in 1964 with her hit song Shout, yet amidst her stardom, the predominant concern on her mind was her anxiety about intimacy after rising to fame at the age of 15.
The singer revealed that the idea of sex made her feel ‘very self-conscious’, so she preferred to wait for the right person to fall in love with.
She shared: ‘I wasn’t interested in being a fan; I was a musician. But, truthfully, I was also terrified of sex. The topic was never openly talked about in my household, and Betty [her mother] made it seem almost disgraceful, one of the many aspects contributing to the conflict between my parents.
‘I wanted love, I wanted romance. I was just scared of the reality, so I spent my time wrapped up in fantasy, in love with the idea of love.’
Lulu, 76, has admitted she was ‘afraid of sex’ in an exclusive extract from her upcoming memoir If Only You Knew, out on September 25
Lulu rose to fame in 1964 with her hit song Shout, yet the primary concern on her mind was her fear of intimacy after becoming famous at 15 (pictured in 1967)
Lulu explained that her fear of sex developed because it was a prohibited topic during her teenage years, although she emphasized she has ‘never had any negative experiences’ in the bedroom.
She noted: ‘There was a particular area that made me feel very self-aware: sex. It seemed like a void that pulled everyone around me in while I drifted through space watching them disappear, which heightened my sense of being somewhat separate.
‘I had boyfriends of course. Alex Bell from the Luvvers was my first, and there was a brief romance with Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits.
‘But none of it went much further than a goodnight kiss because I’d skipped so much school that human biology had completely passed me by.
‘And, in those days, we didn’t do the teenage conversations that you see in Hollywood films today which might have started to reveal its secrets. I didn’t have a clue.
‘I never had any bad experiences because I was protected by Marian [her first manager] and made sure to befriend musicians’ wives and girl- friends as a way to both protect myself and show I wasn’t interested.’
Lulu also touched on her strong crush towards English rock and blues guitarist Eric Clapton.
‘My crush on Eric, however, still burned strong and I remained desperate to see him. So, one night, I threw a party and invited everyone – the Beatles, the Who, the Animals and Cat Stevens – hoping he’d come too.
Lulu said her fear of sex evolved because the subject was taboo growing up as a teenager as she insisted she has ‘never had any bad experiences’ in the bedroom (pictured in 1967)
Lulu, who has been married twice, first wed Maurice Gibb from 1969 to 1973 (pictured together)
She later went onto marry John Frieda from 1977 to 1991 (pictured together)
‘Nervously waiting for him to arrive, Ikept an eye on the door until he finally walked in and then turned to chat animatedly to someone else in an effort to ignore him. But, late that night, we ended up outside smoking and, heart palpitating, I tried to act cool’, she wrote.
Lulu recently opened up about her alcohol addiction for the first time, admitting she is now in recovery.
The Eurovision star revealed she spent years facing ‘dark’ moments and battling ‘shame’ which left her in rehab.
In a new interview with The Times, she said: ‘I was a secret drinker. I think I always wanted to be Miss Perfect, the “best Lulu”, and I was terrified of being like my father.
‘For years, I made a choice not to talk about [my alcoholism] publicly. I chose to wait until I had the language to understand it before I could start spouting off.
‘I’ve learnt a lot from other people, their memoirs, and self-help books too, so maybe I can be of some help now.’
She went on to say her alcoholism got worse as she got older and her son, Jordan Frieda, 48, left home.
She said: ‘For me, it had been controllable until I got into my sixties.
Lulu recently opened up about her alcohol addiction for the first time, admitting she is now in recovery (pictured in 2002)
‘After I became menopausal, with both my parents gone, the empty nest, looking around and seeing all the young kids in the music industry, I became more and more reliant on it and so it just got worse.
‘For many years, and I can’t say how many, I had not been happy with the way I felt, not at all happy and [yet] unable to ask for help.’
Lulu then detailed some scarring moments from her upbringing, such as witnessing violent domestic abuse between her father and her mother and the time her dad was ‘dragged away’ by police.
‘It’s a family illness,’ she said. ‘The gene is there.’
While she feared people perceiving her parents as ‘bad people’, she now says they were ‘damaged’, but she also ‘carried so much shame’ about their actions.
Lulu believes her alcoholism was ‘the culmination of a life spent trying to suppress feelings’, having always supported her family and under pressure to uphold a professional image.
These days, Lulu, who has been married twice, firstly to Maurice Gibb from 1969 to 1973, then to John Frieda from 1977 to 1991, said she is living in a much ‘brighter’ world, residing in central London with her cockapoo.
Extracted from If Only You Knew by Lulu published on 25th September 2025 (Hodder & Stoughton, £25)
Lulu will be on tour from the end of September – for tickets please visit https://www.luluofficial.com/
