On Saturday, Sept. 16, Christina Milian performed at Atlanta’s Midtown Music Festival in partnership with Lysol, and revealed that she has fully moved her family to France.
“I’m in Paris now,” she tells The Messenger. “We’ll be living there for the year. We do still have a household in Los Angeles, but we’re getting ready to pack up, because we’re not living in it. We’re like, what are we paying for? A house that we don’t live in?”
The 41-year-old gained popularity in the US in the early 2000s with her hit pop songs like “Dip It Low” and various notable appearances in TV and film. Milian now lives with her longtime boyfriend, French singer Matt Pokora, and their children Isaiah and Kenna; as well as her first child, Violet Madison, from her previous marriage to R&B producer The Dream.
While they plan to sell their L.A. home, they’ll still visit their California friends and family a few times a year. “It’s like your typical family living in one place and you go visit your family on the holidays. So I’m in Paris, I’m Parisian now.”
Her youngest children are “fully bilingual,” she notes, although she herself is still “working on it.”
“Isaiah is the oldest son,” she explains. “He speaks to me in English and he speaks to Dad in French, and he’s got a crazy vocabulary. So I’m kind of inspired because I’m like, how does a 3-year-old learn? I know their brains are connected that way, and they’re supposed to learn the most at that age.”
It motivates Milian to work harder in learning the language. “I’m doing Duolingo. I also have an online coach.”
And her children are enjoying the change in culture. “My daughter, this is her first year in international school in France, and [she’s] so happy to be able to do something so great, for her to have this type of experience and meet people from all over the world. She’s learning French and the kids are having fun. It is a good place for us because we’re really active people and there’s a lot to do there.”
Pokora and Milian have discussed moving their family back to the States eventually. “We said by a certain age — whether it’s elementary or in middle school or high school — we want to move the boys over for sure. We’ll be back in the States long-term because of sports — dad’s really into sports, so he’s always thinking about, ‘where’s the basketball team going? Where’s this, where’s that?’ So based on him, it’s sports — and based on me, I got to go back and spend some time with my family.
However, “We can be anywhere honestly, as long as we’re together,” she noted.
Milian also discussed why she’s partnering with Lysol Air Sanitizer. “We all know that I have a passion for music, and when I found out that just one minute of singing can produce 1000 virus and bacteria-filled droplets, I’m like, whoa, that’s a lot.”
“As a mom and as a parent that has kids that are going to school and everyone’s flourishing, it really does slow down the process when someone gets sick. I would like to protect my kids as much as possible,” she added. “Lysol air sanitizer, it actually kills 99.9% of viruses and bacteria in the air. I like to say, ‘Hey, we can go a day without touching surfaces, but you can’t go a day without breathing.'”