Myleene Klass emotional as daughter Ava departs for university, speaks to resilience of single motherhood

Myleene Klass fought back tears over the weekend as her eldest daughter Ava left home to begin university, a milestone she marked with an emotional online tribute about raising Ava as a single mother. The moment, framed by Klass’s own public journey through motherhood, came as Ava, 18, started campus life and as Klass balanced pride with the realities of parenting two daughters on her own.

Klass has raised Ava and her younger sister Hero, then 14, by herself since their father, former bodyguard Graham Quinn, left the family in 2013. In an Instagram post accompanying the drop-off, Klass described the moment as emotionally charged and spoke to the challenges and triumphs of the “single mum journey.” She wrote: “We have been through so much together, in particular the single mum journey where I often wondered if I could get her to this point alone. I never should have worried, we smashed it. The village scooped us up and today, my beautiful, talented, super smart babygirl started Uni on her terms.”

The weekend milestone arrived amid a wider arc in Klass’s public narrative about parenting and personal resilience. The star has in recent months spoken about the end of her marriage to Graham Quinn after alleging he cheated with another celebrity. In July, she cited on Paul Brunson’s podcast that she “walked in on him with a famous person on my birthday on a balcony,” a revelation that sparked widespread discussion about a “family brand” and the costs of public scrutiny. Klass has said she has made peace with the breakup, even as the details of the separation fed headlines and online speculation.

With Ava’s departure, Klass described the drive to the campus as a moment of quiet and reflection. In a lengthy caption she posted after dropping Ava off, she recounted the logistics and emotions of the day: an empty car waiting for a return trip, a rain-lashed street, and the small but symbolic rituals that accompany moving a child into dorm life. She recalled loading Ava’s boxes and bags into the digs, stringing up fairy lights, and even washing the new bedding to carry a scent of home. The scene, she wrote, was a blend of practical tasks and the emotional fulfillment of knowing her daughter is growing into independence.

The post painted a portrait of a working mother who has built a life around her children’s ambitions. Klass has previously described her daughters as hard workers who have earned their place in the world through talent and effort. She has publicly pushed back against the notion that her children benefit from nepotism, insisting that Ava and Hero must forge their own paths. In interviews with the Daily Mail, Klass argued that her daughters “will always make money” because they have earned the tools and skills to succeed, not because of their name. She has said that Ava and Hero spend weekends working, and that she wants them to understand the value of earning their own money and the satisfaction that comes with it.

The conversations around talent and privilege have followed Klass into conversations about Ava’s achievements. Klass noted Ava’s strengths in music and language, citing hours of piano practice—“the piano for eight hours a day”—and her training at the Royal Academy of Music, where she auditioned rather than receiving a place by virtue of her mother’s fame. “You could call my children nepo babies all day long but they can play Rachmaninoff concertos like the best of them,” Klass told the Daily Mail. She added that the girls have worked at weekends and earned their opportunities, and she stressed that she would not hand them a path laid out by her name alone. “I earned this and I’m going to decide when to spend it. I know they will be okay in life because they will always be able to make money, they have those tools and that was my job to make them have that but I can’t play the piano for them.”

Ava’s academic and artistic achievements have formed a central strand of Klass’s public messaging about her daughters. Klass has highlighted Ava’s A-Level results, describing them as “four points off perfection” in English, and claiming that Ava’s old school would use her English paper as a teaching resource. She has used those remarks to counter perceptions of privilege and to emphasize the hard work that accompanies success. In discussing her children’s future, Klass has said that their education and training—alongside a clear work ethic—are more important than any inherited name.

The family’s dynamic also includes Klass’s younger son, Apollo, six, with fiancé Simon Motson, and the couple’s shared commitment to raising well-rounded individuals who understand the value of labor and perseverance. Klass’s approach to parenting—balancing public life with private family time—reflects a broader conversation in Culture & Entertainment about how celebrity families navigate private milestones in the glare of social media and constant attention.

For Klass, Ava’s university start marks a pivotal point in a story she has publicly shaped for more than a decade: a narrative of resilience and self-reliance, anchored in a mother’s steadfast commitment to her children. As Ava begins this new chapter, Klass’s posts offer a portrait of a family navigating fame, scrutiny, and the ordinary milestones that define adolescence and adulthood. In a world where public figures often face quick judgments about family privilege or the impact of media exposure, Klass’s emphasis on earned success and mutual support between mother and daughters stands out as a measured, personal take on what it means to grow up in the spotlight while pursuing one’s own path.