{"id":465116,"date":"2026-06-07T08:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T08:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/465116\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T08:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T08:20:24","slug":"freya-ridings-the-singer-on-her-famous-peppa-pig-father-her-marriage-to-ewan-j-phillips-and-her-musical-upbringing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/465116\/","title":{"rendered":"Freya Ridings: The singer on her famous Peppa Pig father, her marriage to Ewan J Phillips and her musical upbringing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Musician Freya Ridings is known for her 2019 hit Castles, but one of her other claims to fame is her father, Richard Ridings, is the voice of Daddy Pig in Peppa Pig. Here, the 32-year-old talks about the important men in her life, including her husband of three years, folk singer Ewan J Phillips<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"FreyaFreya Ridings leans on her dad, voice actor Richard Ridings, whenever she is struggling.<\/p>\n

My maternal grandfather, Vincent Jennings, was an Irish chemist and doctor who had a passion for music. He met my grandmother, Mary McAvoy, at a dance; she bought me my first piano.<\/p>\n

My paternal grandfather died in a freak accident when my dad, Richard, was 10. He was raised by his mother, Doreen, who was left with three small children, including twins.<\/p>\n

My dad is an actor and voiceover artist. I literally bought a place around the corner from my parents \u2013 we are that close. Dad and I are big personalities \u2013 almost like bears. He is the voice of Daddy Pig in Peppa Pig, a role he\u2019s played for almost 22 years. The character\u2019s personality is very like my dad in real life.<\/p>\n

Dad has a passion for playing guitar and writing songs. We didn\u2019t have a living room growing up, we had a music studio. Any spare money went towards recording equipment and magazines. Seeing that obsession made me want to give music a go.<\/p>\n

Mum [Catherine] is also an actor and writer. She had gone to see my dad perform in a one-man show in December 1983 where he played a psychopath. At the end of the show, he spots mum in the crowd and said, \u201cThat\u2019s the woman I am going to marry.\u201d My parents have been married for 42 years. Yes, they argue, but they are also best friends.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find my dad permanently at the kitchen table drinking Earl Grey tea \u2013 he\u2019s like a fountain of wisdom and when I sometimes feel a bit lost or struggling, I go have a cup of tea with him.<\/p>\n

My brother, Arden, is seven years younger than me. He\u2019s kind of like a miracle baby because Mum thought they might not be able to have any more. He also lives down the road and is my best friend.<\/p>\n

I was a real late bloomer when it came to boys. I grew tall really quickly, which helped with the awkwardness. I was very shy at school and was homeschooled for a critical period of two years between 14 and 16 because I was bullied at school for my dyslexia. When I did go back, everyone was already smoking and drinking coffee and kissing. I was like, what happened? I still felt like a child.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have my first kiss until I was 19. That constant yearning for love really helped with my songwriting. It\u2019s like the Bront\u00eb sisters \u2013 not a lot of action and lots of imagination! I watched Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice when I was around eight; I instantly fell in love. He seemed so cool as Mr Darcy.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Matt<\/a><\/p>\n

I got married to Ewan J Phillips, a folk singer, three years ago. We met when I was 19 at an open-mic night. His family are locals and all the siblings were involved in music. I knew them all but him.<\/p>\n

When we did meet, we started as friends. I fell madly in love with him from the second I saw him. Because I had been homeschooled, and he\u2019d been to university, I think he almost felt protective over me. He would come around and play cello while I played the piano.<\/p>\n

We were both dating different people in our very early 20s and would go on double dates, which felt awkward because I think there was more between us, but we hadn\u2019t acknowledged it. There\u2019s a song on my new album called I Have Always Loved You that\u2019s about those ups and downs and knowing deep in my soul he was the one.<\/p>\n

There was an occasion when Mum was in hospital and Ewan literally turned up and ran through the hospital doors. I ran into his arms. He was the first person I called. He was there in a heartbeat. It was a revelation and proof that when people turn up for you in those big moments, everything changes. I was 22 when we formalised the relationship.<\/p>\n

Ewan proposed to me in my parents\u2019 kitchen \u2013 with Mum, Dad and my brother there. It\u2019s such a formative place for us. I still wish he\u2019d proposed one-on-one, but he wanted to get everyone\u2019s approval at once.<\/p>\n

Mother of Pearl by Freya Ridings<\/a> is out now.<\/p>\n

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\"JaneJane Rocca<\/a> is a regular contributor to Sunday Life Magazine, Executive Style, The Age EG, columnist and features writer at Domain Review, Domain Living\u2019s Personal Space page. She is a published author of four books.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-465116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}