Alicia Keys has “deeply struggled” with her “self-worth” over the years

She said: “I realised that I have deeply struggled with feelings of self-worth. That came from my mother and father. They ... My father didn't raise me, my mother raised me. I think I definitely was always looking for his love, to some degree, and feeling like I could never really access it, for many different reasons. And I think that started to give me insecurities.”

Alicia was instead raised by just her mother, and thinks that having to “accommodate” her mother’s feelings made her “lose [her] voice”.

She added: “My mother was also a very, very strong-minded woman, mostly out of necessity, because to survive New York City streets as a single mother, it's hard as hell with a daughter. So, out of necessity, she's very emotions on her sleeve. And so then, I had to accommodate for her, and always kind of fix and dodge and make things right.

“Somehow, I lost my voice in there. Because I always had to accommodate for the protection of that relationship, to allow that relationship to function. I had to accommodate her. Because her style was her own. And she took up a lot of space in the room, you know what I mean?”

The 39-year-old singer - who has sons Egypt, nine, and Genesis, five, with her husband Swizz Beatz - believes she “learned” her self-worth struggle from her parents, and has only managed to let her feelings go in the last few years.

Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music, she explained: “So, I learned that behaviour. And so, on top of, I think the fact that I felt maybe unloved by my father, although I never admitted it. I didn't feel like I did because I was like, ‘Well, I don't really even know you, so how could I feel loved or unloved by someone you don't really know?’ I did. And so, I felt I created and started to discover an insecurity that I carried with me my whole ... I mean, literally, it has been maybe four years that I finally don't hold that anymore.”