Kelis reflects on quitting dream job to provide for family

Kelis found it "heartbreaking" when she realised she wouldn’t be able to support her family by working as a chef.

The ‘Milkshake’ singer split up with her first husband Nas – with whom she has six-year-old son Knight – in 2009 and decided to pursue a career in cooking, but she soon came to find that she would have to return to singing in order to provide for her child.

The 36-year-old beauty – who now also has nine-month-old son Sheperd with husband Michael Mora – said: "Everything turned upside down and I didn’t know how to support myself through food yet, so I had to go back to what I knew, which was music. And it was kind of heartbreaking – I couldn’t even bear to watch any cooking shows."

However, now seven years later Kelis is about to open her first pop-up London eatery and has teamed up with chef duo Le Bun’s Andy Taylor to write a new menu aimed at British diners and admits her life is "totally different" now.

Talking about the two different careers, Kelis told the Guardian newspaper: "It is totally different. I really do feel that music is a very selfish thing. I’ve always made music very specifically for myself. The fact that it has been a success for me is really God-given because I could not care less what people like.

"There’s also something aggressive about music – it attacks your ears even when you don’t want to listen – whereas food is the total opposite. Food is a choice and I think because of that, there’s a certain level of respect that has to go into it."

Meanwhile, Kelis admitted that being signed to a record label felt like an "arranged marriage" that she "hated".

She said: "Cooking school revolutionised everything in my life.

I had spent four years tied to a label I hated, which was like an arranged marriage. I felt exhausted, under-appreciated and really disrespected and it sucked. And then all of a sudden, I realised I could walk away from music and my life won’t shatter."