Corr uncomfortable with ‘most beautiful’ plaudits

SINGER Andrea Corr has told how she has always felt uncomfortable with her fame and her tag as one of the most beautiful women in the world.

The mum-to-be has regularly been lauded for her beauty, but the 36-year-old has revealed the intense interest in her looks has made her feel very self-conscious.

In a revealing interview with Gay Byrne for his new Meaning of Life series, the Dundalk actress also says it took years for her to get together with her husband, Brett Desmond.

The porcelain-faced star also candidly said that achieving worldwide fame in her 20s has not bolstered her ego.

She said: “It comes down to the celebrity thing is very uncomfortable. It is incidental to what I do.

“To suddenly see yourself everywhere when you are almost adolescent in your feelings about yourself and so self-critical, it made me so self-conscious.

“Art is, in a way, pain made beautiful. Certain songs you listen to are someone’s heartache turned into something really beautiful. What happens these days with celebrity culture is we just get the pain, we don’t get the art after it.”

The singer and theatre actress, who has released a new album called Lifelines, also plays down her regular slots on the lists of the world’s most beautiful women.

She said: “I was very self-critical growing up and seeing yourself everywhere certainly doesn’t make you feel beautiful. It is quite strange. It kind of had the opposite effect on me.

“I don’t think it is odd. It would be odd to be going ‘Wow amn’t I gorgeous’. We never see ourselves as we look.”

The singer, who is expecting her first baby, said she feels very blessed to be living her life making music and performing on stage.

“I’m doubly blessed to do something I love which is music and theatre. My love, my husband and my friends and family are really what it is all about.”

She also spoke about feeling sad about her brother Jim’s conspiracy theory attitude the world.

“I don’t believe at all in any of the things he is saying and all I can say is he is absolutely genuine in that he believes this stuff and his motivation for exposing himself in this way is good.

“I think it just started with 9/11, and he didn’t get how the towers fell they way they did and it snowballed.

“I would never be embarrassed by him. I am sad for him that he has such a bleak view of this world and it is not the beautiful place it is from my perspective.”

*The Meaning of Life hosted by Gay Byrne will be on RTÉ One on Sunday at 10.30pm