Inside Charli XCX’s Family: How Her Indian Mother & Scottish Father Raised Her

In the glittery world of pop music, where headlines often centre on feuds — most recently the alleged lyrical barbs exchanged between Charli XCX and Taylor Swift — there’s a deeper story behind Charli’s meteoric rise. It begins long before the anthems and avant-garde fashion shoots, with her parents: an Indian mother who fled Uganda during the brutal Idi Amin era, and a Scottish father whose eccentric streak gave his daughter permission to be different. Here's what to know about Charli XCX's family.

Who are Charli XCX's parents?

Charli’s mother, Shameera, is Gujarati Indian. She was forced to leave Uganda as a teenager in the 1970s when Idi Amin expelled the country’s Asian population. ““Her parents had to really fight to look after them and moved them from Africa to the U.K. with money rolled up inside toothpaste tubes because they had to hide it otherwise it would get taken from them,” she recalled to The Feed. “Their story is a really inspiring one, and it makes me realise how lucky I am."

Shameera later worked as a nurse and flight attendant, careers that demanded the same resilience she once relied on to flee a homeland. In Vogue Singapore, Charli reflected: “My mum is Indian and she was born in Uganda. Her family eventually moved to the UK where she married my dad, who is white.”

Her father, Jon Aitchison, is Scottish — described by Charli in a Telegraph interview as “mental” and “eccentric.” He ran creative businesses and booked shows at a local venue near their Hertfordshire home. Yet there were costs. “My dad got cancer and recovered [during that time] and I didn’t see him because I was just travelling,” Charli told British GQ, recalling how the industry’s demands stole time from family.

READ: What to Know About Charli XCX’s Husband, The 1975's George Daniel

Growing up between identities

For Charli, childhood meant straddling two cultures.

“I grew up in two half-lives, I suppose," she told Vogue Singapore. "When I would go and visit my mum’s family, I felt very Indian. It was all the classic scenes of my nani and bappa cooking with Bollywood films playing in the background and everybody speaking in Gujarati."

She added: “But then I’d go home to this other world which was largely white. It was almost like I would experience the Indian part of my identity only on the weekends. I never quite felt like I fit into either world, which I think commonly happens with mixed-race kids.”

Her parents took her to her first rave at 14. “It definitely was a little bit surreal though to see [my parents] in a rave. I never really envisioned that that would happen,” she told Highsnobiety in 2018. 

The singer – who dedicated her song "Apple" to her parents – said her mother was terrified. “She grew up in Uganda and never really drank, never smoked a cigarette. She came from a Muslim family where the idea of a 14-year-old going to a rave was completely alien.”