Myleene Klass of single mums

SINGLE mum-of-two Myleene Klass, the Hear’Say singer with many strings to her formidable media bow, is turning investigator for this new documentary in which she hopes to find out what parents on benefits are spending their cash on.

The TV presenter and performer is one of Britain's two million single parents as her most important job and dislikes the stigma she feels is attached to the single-mother status and looks to uncover why single mums feel like they get such a hard time.

"When I read the headlines about single mums on benefits, living the high life, refusing to work, it makes me, like everyone else, furious. These stories do nothing to help the image of single parents everywhere, leaving [us] all feeling tarred with the same brush."

Myleene starts her journey by speaking to self-proclaimed Welfare Queen Marie Buchan, an unemployed single mother of eight children who caused outrage when she publicly declared her £26,000 benefits weren't enough.

Next it's on to Margate, where Myleene meets teen mum Becky. She says: "I got quite a lot of negative comments from everyone. They just called me dirty, disgusting. There was one incident where someone actually followed me home and were shouting and swearing at me, so I was running with the buggy because I don't really want to get beaten up with my son."

Myleene also heads to North Wales to stay with 43-year-old single mother Rhiannon, who relies on state benefits after being made redundant and losing the family home shortly after her marriage broke down. She now looks after her trio of children and her grandmother in a rented house. Myleene takes Rhiannon to meet a group of single mothers called Single With Kids in the Delamere Forest. Rhiannon describes her experiences with the group as, “Like an epiphany”. She says: "I've gone through that walk and come back and it's like, 'Yeah we're single mums, and look what we do.'"

There are 200,000 single dads raising their kids in Britain, and many of them also on rely on benefits. So with that in mind, Myleene visits Dad's House, a charity where fathers get the chance to talk to other single dads.

One father, Luke, tells her: "I hated myself for having to go to the job centre. People ask you, 'How do you get your money?' When I say income support, 'Oh, dole dosser scum'. I don't want to claim but I have no choice."

Finally, Myleene goes to Essex to meet 38-year-old Catherine, who chose to become a single mother after using donor sperm from a private clinic. Her twin girls, Phoebe and May, arrived in February 2015.

Having met a range of individuals across the spectrum of single parenthood, Myleene says: "I can hand on my heart say I have re-assessed how I feel about being a single mum. I feel like I have ownership of the words 'single mum' and I'm really proud of it."

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