Leona Lewis: ‘I Can See Myself Being An Older Mum’

Leona Lewis may be prepping her sophomore album, “Echo,” but the “Bleeding Love” singer said she’s planning further ahead – to motherhood.

“In the future, definitely,” she told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper of her child-rearing plans. “But not within five years. I can see myself being an older mum.”

While motherhood can wait, the 24-year-old star said she’s happy with longtime boyfriend, electrician Lou Al-Chamaa, who she’s dated since before the “X Factor” win that catapulted her to stardom – and angered by the U.K. press’s condescending treatment of him.

“This is real life, it isn’t make-believe,” she said. “For people to think that you should leave someone because, all of a sudden, you’re a singer and you have opportunities. I feel very sorry for them. He’s a great person. And it doesn’t matter what you do in life, what your job is, where you come from. None of that matters to me, what matters is who you are as a person – nothing else.

“We are best friends,” she added, explaining that she’s avoided making too many new friends since her rise to fame.

“I feel that all really strong relationships are based on trust. All my friends I’ve known since I was really little,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t let new people in but I do feel… safe with people that really know me, who know who I am.”

Still, the singer said she does love the glamour that comes along with pop stardom.

“Sometimes I think I want to get ‘hair and make up’ every day, but that’s just not possible,” she said. “I think some people love fame, some people hate it, and some people just go along with it, and I think that’s what I do, I just kind of go along with it.”