Marcus Mumford, 39, revealed on the SmartLess podcast July 27 that his wife Carey Mulligan has banned music from their home
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Mumford, 39, appeared on the SmartLess podcast on July 27
,
sharing that he and Mulligan, along with their three children—Evelyn Grace, 10, Wilfred, 8, and a two-year-old daughter—maintain the unusual household rule
.
He explained the reason in his own words.
“We had this conversation the other day. We had a party at home. It was Carey’s birthday, and someone came, and they were like, ‘There’s no music.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, we don’t really play music,’ ” Mumford said on the podcast, adding that “So then Carey doesn’t like having music in the house because I just stop having a conversation.”
The musician’s focus issue with music is intense.
“I can’t do background music because if music’s on, I want to lean in and listen to it. And I can’t switch that part of my brain off,”
he explained.
When he gets absorbed in a song, Mulligan has a direct way of communicating his lapse.
“You’ve gone,” Mulligan always responds by saying when he gets lost in music
.
Mumford generally saves listening to new music for when he is alone, keeping his professional interests separate from family time
.
The couple isn’t just hands-off about music inside their house walls.
Mumford has also revealed that they have a rule against using the word “hate” at home as part of how they raise their children
.
Mulligan has had her own wry takes on her husband’s musician side.
“He was useless,” Mulligan quipped when asked how helpful Mumford was while she prepared to play a retired folk singer in The Ballad of Wallis Island, before relaying a story of how she absorbed something from over the years of watching Mumford perform that ultimately helped her build the character
.
Their relationship traces back decades.
The future couple first crossed paths at a church Bible camp, when Mumford was 10 and Mulligan was 12, and became pen pals
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“We didn’t [hook up] but I wrote in my diary that he was the nicest, the kindest person I’d ever met, and I gave him 9 1/2 out of 10,”
Mulligan shared on the SmartLess podcast.
But she had reservations as a child.
“Yeah, and I also wrote in my diary that he definitely wasn’t boyfriend material. ‘Not that I’d ever had a boyfriend at that time, but I decided that he was not it,'”
she said.
They reconnected as adults a decade later.
In February 2011, the pair were pictured sharing a kiss at a Mumford & Sons concert
.
They reconnected in 2011 and got engaged in August of that year after five months of dating
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In the viral moment that sparked this coverage, Mumford opened up on the podcast about how deeply music consumes him, making home quiet time a necessity for his marriage to function properly.
During the podcast appearance, Mumford recounted that at Carey’s birthday party at home, someone was surprised there was no music playing, and he explained: “Yeah, we don’t really play music”
.
Mumford explained the reasoning during the appearance, saying he tends to become deeply absorbed in music when it is playing, and rather than having it serve as background noise, the musician finds himself listening closely and analysing what he hears, which makes it difficult for him to stay engaged in conversations with his family
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The 38-year-old Mumford & Sons singer has been married to three-time Oscar-nominated star Mulligan, 39, since 2012 and they share three children together
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Mumford rarely speaks publicly about his marriage.
When asked about who he admires the most in an interview with The Guardian, Mumford kept his answer direct and to the point: “Sickeningly, it’s probably my wife, because she’s a legend.”