Singer Nathan Sykes has revealed he is "in awe" of his wife, Charlotte, who is pregnant with their first child. The couple announced last month that they had been keeping "a little secret". Their firstborn will be welcomed in April next year, just a year after the singer and HR manager Charlotte tied the knot at a ceremony in Yorkshire.
Sharing the news on Instagram, the couple posed together in a photobooth before revealing the ultrasound scan. A second image showed Nathan cradling Charlotte's baby bump.
'The most incredible human'
Opening up for the first time about preparing to become a dad, the Butterflies singer told the Mirror: "I'm incredibly excited. I'm in absolute awe of my wife. She's the most incredible human, and what she's doing, what she's going through, is amazing. I'm just blown away by her every day – I can't tell you how excited I am. I just really want to be the best that I can, and I think that's the thing with anything in life, you can only try your best, and hopefully that's enough."
Speaking of Charlotte's personality, Nathan said: "She's the best. She really puts everyone at ease; she's genuinely the best person I've ever seen with kids. Knowing that she's going to have the opportunity to be so amazing with our child is really special. I feel just really grateful that I got to marry someone who's so lovely and kind and really special with people."
West End debut in Hadestown
While Nathan has sleepless nights to come, he is currently working on a different schedule after taking on his first role in the West End. Having trained at Sylvia Young, Nathan boasts a successful career. He is currently living his dreams playing Orpheus in Hadestown – a role he had always desired when he made the decision to venture into acting. After signing with his acting agent, he told them on the spot he wanted to land a role in the production.
He said: "Because of my background at Sylvia's, I have always had the most respect for everyone who works in this area of the industry. At the same time, I hadn't experienced it. I didn't realise how unbelievably challenging and joyous it is at the same time. It's absolutely incredible. It's like high-intensity emotion, high-intensity vocals, every single night, sometimes twice a day. And it's amazing to witness. I've never worked like this before, and it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done."
Although Nathan is known for his powerful vocals, the singer admits that the new vocal challenge is "extraordinary". "I've always said, for me to step into theatre, it has to be something I really want to do," he said of his new role. He added, "I've been obsessed with this incredible show for years, right back to the concept album. I've listened to it religiously. I'll go through periods where I'd listen to it multiple times a day."
Landing his dream role
Earlier this year, when Nathan released his second solo album, he found himself amazed at the opportunities he had as an independent artist. "I was like 'This is wild, you don't have to send your management to somebody in a boardroom,'" he said. It was after this that he decided to sit down and plan out his career as an actor. When his new agents asked what his dream role would be, he replied instantly: "Orpheus."
After several months, Nathan got a call asking what his guitar-playing skills were like, and unbeknownst to him, he had landed an audition for the role of Orpheus. After ten days, he found himself in the chaos of the audition process. While Nathan was driving to a writing session, his agent called and told him to pull over. After finding a coffee shop, they shared the news with him that he had landed his dream role. "I cried," he said.
Nathan, who last year opened up about being diagnosed with autism in his thirties, revealed that he was "utterly fixated" on the role, adding that it was a "wonderful" part of the neurodivergent condition. Prior to his audition for the production, Nathan, who had not been in an audition room for 15 years, was asked to audition for another production to understand the process, including sensory challenges such as lighting and the number of people, and to take notes on it.
"So I went along, did the audition, went across the road, sat in a coffee shop, emptied my folder, put all the Hadestown material into this folder, and then just covered it in notes," he said. After leaving the coffee shop, Nathan stood outside the theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue and just "stared at it". "I walked around the corner and walked straight into Jack Wolfe, who'd just finished playing the role on Broadway," he said.
Reflecting on his current role, he added: "I love the routine it brings me so much comfort, having a routine of I turn up at this time, get food from the same place every day. Those routines have really helped me settle really quickly."
Career highlights and future plans
Nathan was just 16 when he auditioned for the band, before joining Jay McGuinness, Max George, Siva Kaneswaran and the late Tom Parker as The Wanted. After the group split in 2014, Nathan embarked on a successful solo career, with his debut single Kiss Me Quick topping the US Dance Club Songs chart and hitting the Top 20 in the UK.
In 2021, Nathan and his bandmates reunited following the news that Tom had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. "It was really nice to be on equal footing," he said of each member coming together. "I think for the first time with the other guys and going into this, it's a lot of change, I'm still kind of settling a bit. I'm still kind of overthinking every single social interaction I have, and finding it pretty overwhelming."
But after spending over half his life in the industry, Nathan admits he has a string of favourite achievements. "Doing the tour with Tom, which was the last tour we did as a band, was really special," he said, adding: "That was really special, and that was a real highlight, I think purely based on the fact that it was the first time that we all saw each other as equals. There was a lot of respect in that environment. And there was so much love for Tom, and it was really special to me, I suppose, to be there at that time in his life. And that felt like a real achievement, kind of helping fulfil his wish of being on stage and doing another tour. And seeing the joy that it brought to him, it all felt like that was the... the sole focus, and it wasn't about anything else. It wasn't about kind of relaunching the band or a big reunion or anything like that. The sole focus was getting Tom on stage in an arena tour. And being able to achieve that felt like a real highlight."
Another highlight for Nathan was his last album, Ultraviolet, which he made on his own terms, without record label bosses advising on how to look or dress. "It's probably the first time that I had musical freedom as well, which felt like a real achievement," he commented, going on to add: "It was probably the first time that I didn't really care about the perceived public kind of opinion on its success or anything like that. I think one, because of my understanding of the industry now, that especially as an independent artist, you put music out there and it's out there forever. So if you make your money back in three weeks, great, you know. If it takes three years or 20 years or whatever, it's, you know, it's a longer process now for people to find music. I think the achievement for me was doing something as myself and writing everything, having full creative control and ownership."
Nathan performed a mini tour with his last album, to sold-out crowds in Manchester and London, admitting that his album made him realise that happiness "is infectious". He said: "If you kind of have that little bit of freedom and free will and choice about how you are presented and how you choose to present your music and things like that, then that can be successful. We're not saving lives, we're here to hopefully bring joy to people and be people's outlet. It's a privilege that people choose to spend their money to come watch you play or the show. I think once you realise that there is a very real world out there, and like it's tough out there, so to have that compliment of people choosing to spend their money on trusting you to provide them with entertainment, it's really humbling."
But while Nathan is currently busy on the West End, he wants to give fans "whiplash" with his next project, admitting he doesn't want to be "predictable". "I want to do the unexpected," he said. He added: "I want to keep being ambitious and doing things that are challenging and not easy. I've got a real urge to write at the moment, which is exciting, but I'm also absolutely adoring every single day in this building [on the West End]. And then also kind of, there is that small thing of becoming a dad and inevitably taking a little bit of time off when that happens to... to really kind of settle and help out as much as I can."
"Without sounding too kind of at one with the universe, I'm kind of just trusting kind of what comes at the moment, and that feels like a really nice, settled place to be. I want to keep doing things that inspire me, work with people I find incredible, and see where it takes me."
