Lulu has admitted she was 'afraid of sex' while growing up in the sixties, at the peak of her career.
In an exclusive extract from her upcoming memoir If Only You Knew, released on September 25 in line with her tour, Lulu candidly detailed her intimacy fears after she revealed she is an alcoholic in recovery.
Lulu, 76, climbed to fame in 1964 with her hit Shout, but the only thing that was on her mind was her fear of making love after skyrocketing to fame aged 15.
The singer revealed that the idea of sex made her feel 'very self-conscious', so she preferred to wait for the right person to fall in love with.
She wrote: 'I wasn't a fan. I was a musician. But, the truth is, I was also afraid of sex. It had never been openly discussed in my home and Betty [her mother] had made it seem almost shameful, one of the many threads that coursed through the black rage between my parents.
'I wanted love, I wanted romance. I was just scared of the reality, so I spent my time wrapped up in fantasy, in love with the idea of love.'
Lulu, 76, has admitted she was 'afraid of sex' in an exclusive extract from her upcoming memoir If Only You Knew, out on September 25
Lulu climbed to fame in 1964 with her hit Shout, but the only thing that was on her mind was her fear of intimacy after skyrocketing to fame aged 15 (pictured in 1967)
Lulu said her fear of sex evolved because the subject was taboo growing up as a teenager but insisted she has 'never had any bad experiences' in the bedroom.
She wrote: 'There was one area in particular which made me feel very self-conscious: sex. It felt like a black hole pulling every-one around me in while I floated around in deep space watching them get swallowed up, which fed my feeling of being a step apart.
'I had boyfriends of course. Alex Bell from the Luvvers was my first, and there was a brief romance with Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits.
'But none of it went much further than a goodnight kiss because I'd skipped so much school that human biology had completely passed me by.
'And, in those days, we didn't do the teenage conversations that you see in Hollywood films today which might have started to reveal its secrets. I didn't have a clue.
'I never had any bad experiences because I was protected by Marian [her first manager] and made sure to befriend musicians' wives and girl- friends as a way to both protect myself and show I wasn't interested.'
Lulu also touched on her strong crush towards English rock and blues guitarist Eric Clapton.
'My crush on Eric, however, still burned strong and I remained desperate to see him. So, one night, I threw a party and invited everyone - the Beatles, the Who, the Animals and Cat Stevens - hoping he'd come too.
'Nervously waiting for him to arrive, I kept an eye on the door until he finally walked in and then turned to chat animatedly to someone else in an effort to ignore him. But, late that night, we ended up outside smoking and, heart palpitating, I tried to act cool', she wrote.
Lulu recently opened up about her alcohol addiction for the first time, admitting she is now in recovery.
The Eurovision star revealed she spent years facing 'dark' moments and battling 'shame' which left her in rehab.
In a new interview with The Times, she said: 'I was a secret drinker. I think I always wanted to be Miss Perfect, the "best Lulu", and I was terrified of being like my father.
'For years, I made a choice not to talk about [my alcoholism] publicly. I chose to wait until I had the language to understand it before I could start spouting off.
'I've learnt a lot from other people, their memoirs, and self-help books too, so maybe I can be of some help now.'
She went on to say her alcoholism got worse as she got older and her son, Jordan Frieda, 48, left home.
She said: 'For me, it had been controllable until I got into my sixties.
'After I became menopausal, with both my parents gone, the empty nest, looking around and seeing all the young kids in the music industry, I became more and more reliant on it and so it just got worse.
'For many years, and I can't say how many, I had not been happy with the way I felt, not at all happy and [yet] unable to ask for help.'
Lulu then detailed some scarring moments from her upbringing, such as witnessing violent domestic abuse between her father and her mother and the time her dad was 'dragged away' by police.
'It's a family illness,' she said. 'The gene is there.'
While she feared people perceiving her parents as 'bad people', she now says they were 'damaged', but she also 'carried so much shame' about their actions.
Lulu believes her alcoholism was 'the culmination of a life spent trying to suppress feelings', having always supported her family and under pressure to uphold a professional image.
These days, Lulu, who has been married twice; firstly to Maurice Gibb from 1969 to 1973; then to John Frieda from 1977 to 1991; said she is living in a much 'brighter' world; residing in central London with her cockapoo.