Kate Beckinsale pays glowing tribute to daughter Lily

Kate Beckinsale has paid a glowing tribute to her daughter Lily to mark her 18th birthday.

The Hollywood actress has taken to her Instagram account to post a picture of Lily as a toddler and to hail the teenager as the best thing in her life.

Alongside a photograph of Lily wearing her mother’s heels, she wrote: "18 and now you’re in the big girl shoes for real . I love you so much @lily_beckinsale . Nothing has been better in my life than being your mama . Happy happy happy birthday to my favourite, funniest best person in the world . Ps we will obviously get you better shoes those are hideous I don’t know what I was thinking (sic)"

Lily is set to follow her mother and her father Michael Sheen into the acting business, and Kate has insisted she will not discourage her daughter from pursuing her own ambitions.

She previously said: "That would be like sitting there with a glass of wine saying, ‘You can’t have a drink’. I can see why she wants to do it.

"I don’t love the downside of it for my baby. But it’s not like she hasn’t seen both of her parents having a real experience of what it’s like. She has seen us ecstatic and miserable – she’s seen that, squared."

Meanwhile, Kate also said previously that now her daughter is an adult, she intends to return to the theatre and indulge her passion for the stage.

The 43-year-old actress shared: "I stopped doing theatre when I had Lily, so I’m looking forward to returning to stage again – although I could start now since she probably wouldn’t care If I did come home now she is 17. Being a slightly less hands-on mother has been interesting.

"I just have to watch out I don’t have another one!"