Paloma Faith Opens Up About Split From Husband Leyman Lahcine: 'Men Struggle to Be Put Second'

Paloma Faith is getting candid about her split from ex-husband, Leyman Lahcine. In a new interview with The Independent, the singer, who tied the knot with the French artist in 2017, addressed their separation -- the pair, who share two daughters together, went their separate ways in 2022 after nine years of marriage. The reason, according to Faith, was she couldn't give Lahcine the same level of attention she did before they had kids. "You either grow together, adapting to one another like expandable foam and filling the gaps where it's empty -- or one person grows and the other stays the same," Faith shared. Ultimately, having children together, Faith claimed, was what led to the breakdown of their marriage. "And I think for me, becoming a mother was such a massively life-changing experience that for the first time in my life, I needed more than nothing -- and the expandable foam just wasn't there," the 42-year-old singer explained. While it apparently ended their marriage, Faith called it "worth it." She previously dished on her split from Lahcine, 36, in an interview with The Times, telling the outlet she felt resentment began to build in their relationship when she could no longer put her ex "first." "Men like to be put first and resentment builds," she explained. "It's nice to have a cuddle, but what people want from a relationship I'm not able to give at this point. Men struggle to be put second!" Still, Faith said, she has a "really good relationship" with Lahcine, even though it looks a bit different these days. "I have a really good relationship with the kids' dad, so sometimes it's like, 'What are we doing? Why are we not together?'" Faith said. "But the key to the success of our relationship now is absence of expectation. Expectation leads to disappointment." The British popstar worked through the aftermath of the split on her new album, The Glorification of Sadness, but maintains it's not a revenge album, but rather focuses on her "internal experience" following their breakup. "I feel like if you listen to the album, its very focused on my internal experience. It's not a finger pointing album, it's not a revenge album," Faith shared during an appearance on BBC Breakfast. "It's all about my internal experience and in a way I think it's quite a positive because they've listened to it and they have a bit more empathy." She continued, "I'm not an angry person. I realized in a very hyper aware way, it takes two people to start a relationship just the same as it takes two people to end it. And it's more about me accepting responsibility for my part as opposed to saying you did this or that. It's not a public blame game." While she said that Lahcine has not listened to the record and did not desire to hear it in full, Paloma has played him the "bits" he wanted to hear, including a track titled, "Divorce." "My partner and I actually have a really good relationship. Obviously he's creative so he's quite empathetic to it all, but he hasn't actually listened to the record," she revealed. "He doesn't really want to, he's like, 'Play me which bits you want me to hear.' I did play him 'Divorce', because for me that's the only one that's really about him. All the others are about my own experience and I was like, 'This one you should hear.'" Faith's sixth studio album, The Glorification of Sadness, is available to stream now.