Billie Piper

Name Billie Piper

Birth name Lianne Paul Piper

Date of birth 22 September 1982

Star sign Virgo

Birthplace Swindon, Wiltshire, UK

Height 5ft 5in

Eye colour Brown

Marriages Chris Evans, 6 May 2001 (divorced 31 May 2007); Laurence Fox, 31 December 2007

Children None

Biography

After teen chart success, Billie Piper has transformed herself from pop princess into award-winning actress.

Known for her trademark blonde hair and dark eyebrows, she clocked seven top five hit singles by the age of 20, before turning her hand to the small screen, where she is best known for her role in Doctor Who.

Billie grew up in Swindon and, after studying at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, got her break in the entertainment world when she starred in a commercial for teen music magazine Smash Hits.

She soon landed a record deal and in 1998 became the youngest artist to debut at No.1 in the UK singles charts with Because We Want To. Her follow-up single Girlfriend also hit the top spot and she received two BRIT nominations in 1999, but her second album, Walk Of Life, failed to hit her previous heights and marked the end of her pop career.

An 18-year-old Billie was back in the headlines in 2001 when she married TV presenter Chris Evans in Las Vegas – a union that raised a few eyebrows because of the 16-year age gap between the couple – but the marriage didn’t last.

In 2003 she returned to her original ambition, acting, and starred in BBC costume dramas The Canterbury Tales and Much Ado About Nothing (2005). But it was her role as Rose Tyler in Doctor Who, from 2005 to 2006, that put her back on the map and earned her the title of Most Popular Actress at the 2005 and 2006 National Television Awards. 

Success has continued for Billie, most notably as a high-class prostitute in Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, despite revelations in her recent autobiography, Growing Pains, that she has struggled with eating disorders and the pressure of early fame.

Quotes
(On taking no money from her divorce)
‘I don’t know if I’d be able to sleep at night having taken a big chunk of his hard-earned cash. It’s not like he was a f***er to me, you know, he was amazing to me. So I just didn’t want it.’ (Marie Claire, November 2007)

(On her anorexia)
‘When I feel that my life is out of control I start clutching at straws and those straws all relate to my weight or my health.’ (Times Online, 26 September 2007)

‘Women are incredibly strong, but often the only time they’re weak is when they’re with a dysfunctional man.’ (Times Online, 19 February 2007)

(On her marriage to Chris Evans)
‘It offends me if people say, “What was that about?”, like it was just a mad moment in time that didn’t mean anything. That really pisses me off.’ (The Guardian, 16 December 2006)

(On substance abuse during her teen fame)
‘I had my head in the clouds, was mad, neurotic, destructive, a very different character to the one you see today.’ (Radio Times, 2006)