Charli XCX's parents believed in the Grammy winner enough to escort her to rave performances in the United Kingdom when she was a rising artist.
Conan O'Brien featured the pop vocalist on the Monday (January 26) episode of his podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, where Charli recounted her father and mother, Jon and Shameera Aitchison, taking her to late-night gigs.
"I mean, obviously, at the time I was like, 'Can you guys wait outside? You're cramping my style,'" the Brat artist said around the 24-minute mark below. I was so ungrateful in a way, 'cause who wants to go to the rave with their parents? It's so fucking embarrassing."
Charli added that her parents were "respectful" not to cross boundaries during the shows.
"Now in hindsight, I'm like, Wow, that is so cool of them. They didn't have to do that," she continued. "They kind of drove me up there and would sort of hang out in the back. This is like late stuff. I would go on at 4:00 a.m."
But Charli's parents would draw lines sometimes. She says they shut down her opportunity to move in with one of the rave promoters, possibly seeing it as an inappropriate living arrangement.
The singer went on to explain that her father came from a "working-class background" and encouraged Charli to become an artist.
"He was kind of like, 'Oh, if you're really passionate about this, then you should go and perform because maybe then you can do that for real,'" she said. "And I think most parents would be like, 'You shouldn't do that. That feels unreliable and stressful, and why don't you pursue something else?' But I think he was always a bit of a dreamer."
The British artist has previously spoken about her parents attending illegal raves with her when she was as young as fifteen years old. In a 2024 interview with BBC, Charli joked that her method of going to the parties was telling her parents that she had 2 a.m. swimming lessons.