Jessie J: I Quit Music, Deleted An Album, Then Changed My Mind
嘉宾：Jessie J
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§01Transcript — part 1
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I felt like I'd been given everything I've ever wanted and then someone had gone, but you can't have it. I've never felt so lonely in my life. 2015-16, it was really the first time that I'd had fame. I didn't know how to cope, so I just panicked all the time. I just want to sing.
The day that I found out that the baby had died, I didn't have anyone to just fall apart on, and that's what I needed. That's what I wanted.
When I sent you that voice note, it was around the time when you'd done a big post about Dave.
He was my guy. And I wish I could have protected him from himself like he protected me from myself. That’s the bit that hurts me the most. Between Dave and Jamal, the things that those people gave me in my life are things that I know I have to find in myself.
You've got this bougie-ass place and you've got kitchen roll. I love it.
So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO USA edition. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
I tend to believe that people's family are their foundation. And when I was reading through the story of your family and your early years, it actually seemed pretty idyllic.
Yeah, I mean, we weren't... My mom and dad, I didn't grow up with loads of money. We weren't hard up, but we weren't rich. But when I think about it again, the one thing that I've learned from my parents the most is it doesn't matter about the things and the specifics. It's about the energy you create within what you have.
We would go camping in the garden and my dad would pretend to be a bear in the middle of the night. And I believed to this day it was a bear. You know, my mom's looking out the window because she's gone in because she's like, "I ain't doing this." And my dad's peeing in a bucket. They're still doing it. Not in front of us because that would be weird, but they used to just create these experiences and it was all about feeling. That's what I remember the most from my childhood.
More so than anything else. It's weird, like I was in hospital a lot of my childhood and I never ever thought I was sick because my mom and dad never treated me as if I was. It never became a definitive of who I was, which is I think even why now I don't define myself on that. I don't want to, even when other people try. There was just always this air of making the best of whatever the moment was, even if it was tough.
Your dad worked in mental health?
Yeah, mental health social worker.
How did that influence your early years?
Well, my dad is a Pisces through and through. He's an emotional, honest, hilarious, very sensitive, stubborn man. And so growing up, he's very in touch with his feelings and his emotions, which isn't common in a lot of men. We grew up talking. I spent a lot of time with my dad when I was young.
He used humor in his job and with us as me and my two sisters and his relationship with my mom. He made her laugh. And even now, my dad's humor is his defense, his way of hiding, his way of making friends, his way of healing. Him being a social worker was always that beautiful thing where he used to ride the line where he would open you up, know that you were going to cry, and then make you laugh.
You always feel safe when you're very, very sad and then you laugh. The emotion is always kind of... they intertwine. Deep sadness and intense happiness are so close together. That feeling when you're at a funeral and everyone's crying and then someone makes a joke and everyone bursts into laughter. That's the line that my dad is incredible at balancing.
You're good at that too, because I've watched you in some of your hardest moments.
Which is where I get it from, for sure. I make a joke, but I use it in a way to allow people to feel safe, including myself, to bring out the sadness and the pain. To talk about something really intense or go through a moment that's hard, but then make a joke or make light of the situation or laugh at ourselves.
Going into bird's-eye view and looking down and going, "Look at us lot. You paid 30 quid to come and cry." You know what I mean? It's that thing of just tapping back into reality and going, "Oh God, I'm not alone." It's good to laugh. Laughter can feel as connective to me as crying with someone, as being intimate with someone. There's that thing that you have where if you're really in that moment, it's such a release.
You said you spent a lot of your time as a kid in hospital. What was the first time you went?
First memory I have, I think I was eight and we were in Epping Forest. We were in the park and my dad said, "Right, let's race to the car." We started to run and I just remember I couldn't breathe and I collapsed. The next thing I remember is my dad picking me up and running to the car.
We got into the car, we went to the hospital, and my dad has WPW (Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome), my granddad had WPW, which is a heart problem. So that was the first time I was taken in with an irregular heartbeat. I was put on very heavy medication as a child, which would cause me to have seizures and pass out. It was just awful.
I was in and out of hospital a lot as a child. It was weird, I remember being let out for the day to go and do rehearsals for *Bugsy Malone*, and then I would go back in. So I'd be on a drip at the rehearsal. There was always this kind of balance that kept me present in myself. I almost think that that's been my blessing in my life. My health has always kept my feet on the ground in many ways.
But I never remember being in hospital and being aware of what I was going through. Every memory I have, I'm always thinking about the people I watched and looking at them going, "God, they need a magazine," or "They haven't eaten anything today. I wonder how they're feeling." I don't remember being in pain or coming around from an operation. It's almost like it didn't happen.
You define yourself as an empath.
For sure. Even people that hurt me, I feel bad for the people that hurt me because I look at why they've hurt me as opposed to the way I feel. But again, I try and use it as best I can because I know it's just who I am.
When you're in hospital, one of the things that you saw which inspired "Big White Room" was a boy laid next to you.
Yeah, so I was in a Ladybird ward and there was a little boy in the room with me. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and he was crying and praying. He had all of these tubes and the blood lines and stuff—I don't remember what it's called—but he had all these things and he was just going, "Please don't let me die. I'm so scared. Don't let me die, God. I want to stay here. I really want to be here."
He was probably 10 or 11. I woke up and I remember just sitting and watching him for hours and just listening to him. Then the next morning, I remember seeing his mom come in and just taking all the balloons. I said to my mom, I was upset, "Why wasn't he here now? He asked so nicely." My mom just said, "You know, sometimes God needs his angels closer to him."
I remember that moment stayed with me for years. I was probably 10 when that happened. When I was 16 or 17, I had to write a song about it. It was the first song I wrote. It stayed with me. That was the way I needed to let that feeling out of like, "Everybody's looking at me and everyone's staring at me. What do I do now? I smile because I'm still here."
I don't want to be here and I don't remember what I felt before. Obviously, since that moment, that experience, and then when I wrote the song, I'd also gone through a lot more health stuff and experiences. But that was the most human thing I'd ever seen, even though I wasn't conscious of the fact that it was.
How long did that last, the health issues in your sort of pre-18 years in terms of going in and out of hospital?
Not very long. I mean, it was chunks of time. I had an ablation, which is like a little operation they do where they put two wires through your shoulder and two wires through your groin and they try and electrocute your heart into a normal rhythm. It didn't work. So I get irregular heartbeat now, but I just don't take any medication. I believe in good diet and how I feel and I try and do everything the holistic, natural way.
I don't believe in medicine as much as other people do. But I think it was funny because I actually got to a point where I felt a lot stronger and I was in a stride. I was in a girl band and I was at the Brit School and I'd cut my hair and I was a Vidal Sassoon model. I was like, "You know, I'm starting to feel like I can fit in and I'm not the sick kid that can sing." And then I had a stroke when I was 17.
Then it kind of again took a dip. Then I'd get back on my feet and I get signed and then I broke my foot.
You had a stroke at 17?
Yeah, I had a stroke in Hamleys, you know, the toy shop. I worked there doing nail art. I was like, "I don't feel very well." And I was doing a lot. I've always been someone that over-exerted myself and probably doesn't know when to take a break. Yeah, I lost the feeling on the right side of my body for almost a month.
Now all my issues have been on this side, this side of my body. It's so weird because when people go, "Oh my God, you had a stroke?" I'm like, "Yeah, I don't even think about it." I don't want to define myself on it. I don't want to introduce myself with it because I'm grateful it happened.
If those things hadn't happened in my life—the Meniere's, the uterus issues I've had, the fertility thing, the miscarriage—you grow in moments of sadness and pain. I grew up in those moments and I didn't take my body for granted. I think it's actually given me more moments of beautiful success and joy in my life, not drowning my body in alcohol and drugs and having to take moments of still and resting.
It was almost like, at a very young age at a very pivotal time of my career kind of starting to take off in a more of a "this could actually be my life" way, my body would always keep me safe even though it was shutting down. It would always just remind me to go, "You're not superhuman. You could die. Don't fuck this up."
It almost feels like my health has just always had my back when my life has gone like this. It's always kind of gone, "Take a second." For a long time, I felt like I was cast with this spell that every time I kind of got somewhere... like I was just about to break America and I broke my foot. I had to pull out of opening for Katy Perry on tour.
All these things that you've got—your thing you sit with your team and you go, "This is going to happen and this is going to be great," and everyone's excited, and then I get sick. Even recently, I was about to release my album and my first single and then I was in a car accident and I had a throat issue where I had nerve and tissue damage and I couldn't sing. Then my Meniere's, and I went deaf in this ear.
But now I don't even want to release that album because I don't really like the music. Maybe that's why it happened. I just feel like I've been protected by my health being what other people would see as bad. Every time something happens to my body, I'm always like, "Okay, what am I not listening to?"
So I feel like that's my personal way of looking at it and my journey. So when you say, how long was that for, it's kind of been my whole life. Even up until recently when, right when I got my voice back and I started doing these shows and I finally was told I could sing again, I phoned my agent and I was like, "I have to do like a residency somewhere."
I started doing these acoustic shows and I was like, "I really want to do stand-up. I want to do comedy, I want to make people laugh and sing." That's literally my purpose, right? And then the day before the first show, I have a miscarriage. And I still went and did it. Not because "the show must go on," but to me, Jessie J and Jessica Cornish—Jessie J is just a brand name, they go hand in hand, they're the same person. The reason that my music exists is because my life exists.
I write about shit I go through. So I want to stand in the middle of the pain even when it's terrifying and you're being exposed. But even in that moment, I was like, "I know this happened for a reason."
The day that I found out that the baby had died... this man—I can't make this stuff up and I always wish someone would see these things happen—but I was on the street crying uncontrollably. I felt like my body had gone numb. I was just on the street and I couldn't move. I literally just stood at this bush for like two hours.
I was phoning everybody that I knew to try and answer the phone just because I was by myself. I was in Santa Monica. This man came up to me and said, "I don't know what's going on in your life in this second, but I know that it's happening so that you can talk about it and help other people."
I remember just going, "That's the story of my life," and the anger I felt where I was like, "Why can't this just be about me? Why do I have to help someone else?" And then I realized that is what I've been called on to do. I know that what I do is so much bigger than me.
It's not about the song or the accolades or the awards. It's about the feeling that you can hand over to someone that they can't find themselves. I have experienced so many things that are so randomly rare, and then also I've experienced things that aren't rare at all but no one talks about.
The amount of women—and men—that have been close to someone losing a baby or having infertility issues or losing children themselves, or even women that have had children that don't know how to connect with their children... Talking about that pain not only helped me but helped other people.
I know that, going back to what you asked me before, I know that's so much of my purpose, as much as hard as it can be in moments. I get so much peace from knowing that pain that I know I can handle and have a different perspective of than someone else that might not, that I can share it with them and give them a different perspective. It's such an amazing feeling for me to be able to give that to someone that can't find it on their own.
It's a heavy weight to carry, to always have to be the inspiration, though, right?
For sure, but it isn't always the case. But I think it's just understanding that. After I did that first show, a huge part of me regretted it because I was angry that I reacted as Jessie J. I reacted as my brand, I reacted as "I need people to know I'm okay." I don't want people to think I'm this always sick, always ill person.
"Didn't she just go deaf?" That's the comments. "Didn't she just... like..." You know, like when you go into a new relationship, people are like, "Wasn't she just with so-and-so?" and it's like, that was two years ago, but they live in a little bubble of when they want to discover things.
You're talking about doing the show the day after you had a miscarriage.
In the sense of the reaction of going, "I must... the show must go on." After that show, I surrendered to my pain and for nobody else but myself. That's something that I don't think I've ever done. A lot of grief came out—grief of grandparents, of friends, of people that I've lost. It all came out in that moment and still is, to be honest. It was only five months ago that this happened.
I feel like a lot of grief that I had stored in interviews where I was like, "You know, and you've just got to find this and it's always looking for the silver lining." I actually just enabled myself to just break open and be miserable and sad and not have a quote at the end of my moment and just go, "No, it's shit and I'm broken and it's awful and I'm sad." Knowing that the light would come and it did, but knowing that speeding up my process of grief because it makes somebody else feel good is great, but also not going to be healthy for me.
Do you remember the day when you found out that you would struggle to... the doctor told you that you would struggle to have children?
Oh yeah. It was in the middle of a really major busy time for me. It was right before "Bang Bang." I was doing all these different shows and I basically would have this extreme pain, like agonizing pain. I would pass out, it was awful. They were like, "You have IBS," and I was like, "No I don't. I know I don't have IBS."
I know myself, I know my body, I know it's not IBS. I stuck with it and I went to keep going to see different doctors and I finally got diagnosed with endometriosis, which is very common. Then I had an operation. They took all the endometriosis out. I went home—I still lived with my parents—I went home and I was still in agony and I was still having the episodes.
I went back into hospital and they did another operation where they discovered I have adenomyosis, which is a form of endometriosis that goes into the wall of the uterus. So they're little cells that you can't take out unless you take your uterus out.
So they were like, "You either manage the pain—which at the time I was like, how do I do this?—or we take your uterus out right now." And I was what, 26? He was like, "I would recommend you to do that. It's only going to get worse." And I said, "I'm good. I'll go home and I'll look at other ways I can look up and manage my pain."
That's when I went plant-based. That was years and years and years ago. It definitely helped and improved. I changed my lifestyle and kind of slowed my pace down after that record, the "Bang Bang" record. I took a long time, not off, but just slowed down. That's when I wrote the *Rose* album. So behind the scenes, there's always a story for everybody. But yeah, that moment was super pivotal for me.
A lot of things happened at once. I was reading that around the time you were in Australia, 2015-2016 time, you had lost your grandparents within like four or five months of each other. You'd had a breakup.
A breakup, my first breakup that was kind of public because I was with someone that was famous. Just discovering myself, you know? It was really the first time that I'd had fame in America too. When I was famous in the UK, I obviously came here a lot and it was kind of great because I was like, "I can just do whatever I want and no one cares."
It was kind of like I could escape to just live completely in the knowledge that I would leave my house or my hotel and for the whole day no one would be like, "Jessie!" or just come up to me with a camera phone or whatever. I needed that. I was still quite young and I miss staring at people and getting away with it. You know what I mean? Just watching people eat or staring at someone in the car next to you and knowing they're not going to look over and be like, "Are you Jessie J?"
I remember coming here and having that and then I didn't have that as much anymore here. I just felt really trapped. Really trapped. That was the lowest point that I've had in myself in this industry was 2014, 15, 16 in when I was back and forth from Australia. That's when I moved here in 2015.
When you say trapped, what's the symptoms of being trapped?
I just felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt like everywhere I went, someone was watching me. I felt like I couldn't eat in public because someone would film me and comment on it, comment on what I was wearing, comment on my body, comment on... I just... it always felt like I was being followed. That was the biggest thing where my anxiety came from.
Someone telling me or giving me something that I would then have to focus on that I'd never saw, like that I have a big jaw, that I have cellulite or this or that, where I would never even... it wasn't a thing. Then someone would go, "Have you ever noticed that she says 'um' or 'like, like, like' a lot?" And then I'd be conscious of the way I spoke.
When you first get somebody commentating on everything you do and are, I was just like, "How do I live unconsciously now? How do I go to the beach without feeling like I'm in my underwear in front of someone hiding in the bush taking pictures?" I still don't know sometimes, even now.
It felt like I had to relearn how to do life. I was comfortable going in front of 100,000 people and singing a song. No problem. But going to put petrol in my car? I literally was like, "I don't even know how to do it." I would drop the thing, I wouldn't be able to lock the thing on the car because I would feel like someone was watching me. It just destroyed me.
I remember just I wouldn't leave my hotel room. I went out and bought like 50 hats. Even though it probably wasn't as bad as that, you don't go to how... I get that even me talking about it now, I'm conscious that the people watching this are going, "Alright, well you fucking asked to be famous. Get over it."
There's no space to feel like, "You know what, there's parts of it that are amazing, but there are parts of it that are so toxic and unhealthy and so inhumane." No one has a lot of space to be empathetic for that. At that moment in my life, I just felt like I had no one I could talk to that had experienced it to guide me, to go, "You're okay. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you." I just felt so alone.
I felt like I was hovering above everybody in every room I was in. I wasn't able to just exist playing a game at a friend's house. I was always just like, "Is everyone thinking about what I'm saying and going to repeat it?" So I just panicked all the time that someone was going to misread what I was saying or if I was in a bad mood and I went to like a fish and chip shop and didn't want to take a picture, that they would then tell someone else and it would get to the *Daily Mail*.
Did that happen?
Oh, all the time. "Jessie J demands..." I mean, there were times where I then would almost... I remember for a little while, for a couple months, I became what the press told me I was because I got so tired of justifying that I wasn't mean and I wasn't a diva. I was like, "Here, let me just be what they say I am because that's what people think I am anyway."
Even when I am nice... I remember going into a room and being like, "Hi everyone!" and no one responding and me going, "Hi?" and everyone's like this, like... you know, when you're at that... it's weird. It was peak kind of everywhere fame, Saturday night TV, and it was just such a trippy experience. Me just was like, "Everyone hates me. No one likes me anymore. So I'm not going to try and be liked." It didn't last very long.
If you could go back and speak to that Jessie that was going through that, what advice would you give her?
Bird's-eye view, babes. Just imagine the... The best piece of advice I was given from a therapist was perspective. Like, imagine the world, go above it, imagine yourself flying above it and really look at what you're stressed about.
Get outside, get some air. Just get outside, go to a park, take a walk. And also be honest to your friends and your family about how you're feeling and allow them to be there for you. I think everyone was kind of swirled up in... I mean, you've experienced it yourself recently, going from being able to do whatever you do and no one knowing who you are to then everyone knowing who you are. Then everyone around you doesn't instantly go, "Are you okay?" They go, "This is great! Isn't it amazing? Aren't you having so much fun?" And you don't feel like you can go, "Actually, no. Some of it's great, but some of it's really weird and I need you to hold my hand. I'm a little scared."
"Now I don't know how to get on the train when I never used to think about that. And now I have to rethink about it and I go, can I go on this Central Line on a Saturday at peak time? No. So how do I get to where I need to go because my status is way higher than my money and I can't afford a driver?" Your mind is going, "Who do I talk to about this? Where do I go?"
That's when I was 25, 26 and I shaved my head and I did all of that, I was just like, "What is happening? And who do I tell that will understand?"
Did you find anyone that understood?
Yeah, I think I had to learn that talking to my loved ones... I remember sending out a message to everybody going, saying, "Unless I am in danger or you don't think I've seen something that's really bad that's been put in the papers, I don't want to see it."
Amen. Oh, that's the worst.
"I don't want to see it. Don't send me a link of me on the beach." My friends and my family sending me links of people criticizing me. "Have you seen this? What a load of shit." I said to my mom and dad and my brothers and sisters super early doors, "Don't read the comment section on this website. Don't tell me. Don't send me the link. I'm not bothered, I'm not looking. If you want to look, fine, but don't bring it into my house."
Also the thing that they need to be focused on, and this is what I had to say to my friends and family: stop focusing on what the other people are saying, focus on helping me be someone that can be within that.
It doesn't matter what Donald from Manchester thinks about my outfit that I wore. What matters is that I still feel confident wearing those things after I may or may not have been forced to read those comments. Fan bases will sometimes shove that in your face going, "Can you believe this?" and it's like, I don't want to see it. I don't want to read it. Sometimes you literally can't avoid it.
So your closest friends and family, that was the biggest thing for me was making them understand like, I need you to be there for Jess who's in the dressing room, not worrying about what the people think that are in the audience watching Jessie J. I need you to care about the girl backstage before I even step on the stage.
When you're a performer and you're in the public eye, you've got to create basically a brand, as you call it. You make this distinction between Jessica and Jessie and whatever, and they're really the same person. Is there a point in your life where your identity got too caught up in being Jessie J?
Yeah, for sure. When I wouldn't know what to wear, like I'd wear a catsuit and my bob wig to like a family barbecue because I just didn't know how to tone it down. I was just on this hamster wheel. I just didn't know who I was away from working.
One thing I realize now is you are a product of your environment. I see that in my niece and my nephews, and I watch my best friends and my close family members have children, and I see how different their kids are because they are a reflection of their environment.
When I look at how I was in those pivotal moments of my life—and I think this is why I have so much empathy for younger artists and I really care about how they're protected, and just young people in general—protected from what the world is telling them they are as opposed to them discovering themselves. I was a product of "When I wake up, I'm working." Like, "This is what you wear, this is what you do, this is how you act, this is what you say."
And so I didn't know how to switch off. I would literally have to leave the house in a full face of makeup and... it was weird. It was like a trippy... I remember going on holiday with a couple of my girlfriends and we were going for dinner and I was so stressed about what to wear and how to do my... and it was so dumb. It's not even important, but it was moments like that where I was just like, "God, I need to chill out. I'm not Jessie J right now."
But I didn't know who I was. I literally had no clue like what my favorite color was or what food do I like to eat because I would just get given "this is what we've got, this is what you've got time to eat." For so long, it was so unhealthily fast. Everything was just speeded up. I was like, "What do I want to do? What are my hobbies? What do I like to do other than just sing and travel? Travel to sing?"
I don't know. And that's when I was like, "Okay, I need to take a second." After that third album, I took like four years and disappeared.
In that time you've got record labels telling you presumably who you are, who they want you to be?
Not even. You know what, that's one thing I will say about my record label. For as much as you always have your disagreements with anybody in power and anybody you work for, work with, or work under or work next to, my record label have always supported me to the best of their ability and to the best that I understand.
The *Rose* album, the last album I put out, was my favorite that I've ever put out. Was it the most successful? No. Was it the most authentic to who I was at the time? Yes. Did it have the biggest support from my label? No. Did that matter to me at the time? No, because I knew that the music was great. Yeah, it would have been great had they been more supportive, but it didn't take away from the purpose of what that moment was for me personally.
So no, they've been great. They've been amazing. And even now, they're super supportive. First time I'm talking about it that I had an album that was done, ready to go, and I listened to it a couple months ago and was like, "This ain't it." And then I went back in the studio three days ago to just kind of start again. Maybe I'll use some of the old songs, maybe I won't, maybe I'll rework them, but there just was something that wasn't right. They're like, "We support you, we love you, we got you. We see you, we understand you." I've been with them for almost 15 years.
What I've struggled to find is an internal team immediately around me.
Like an assistant, a manager, that kind of thing?
Managers, assistant... no. Just a team. That's where I'm at right now. I just let go of my sixth manager two days ago. Yeah. No hard feelings, great people, amazing at what they do, just not right for me.
And I know it's because there's something I'm doing wrong because I keep picking the wrong people. So I know I need to look inwards and go, "What am I doing wrong here? Is it because I know I know what I want and I don't really say it because I don't like to cause waves in the ocean?" Kind of like a smooth sailing moment, but I also know what I want and I know what I deserve.
It's taken me a long time to be confident in saying, "I know I can really sing," but I've just never had a team that really get it. That had the same passion as me and live for the moments and taking risks and not being afraid. I guess maybe I'm talking about it right now because someone that's meant to be for me in my life might see this.
People go, "What are you going to do now? Have you got a new manager lined up?" And I'm like, "No. I didn't let them go because I've secretly been meeting people. That's not who I am." One thing for sure is I'm loyal and I'm respectful. But when your manager is like almost a marriage—you go into a contract and you hand over a very big, important part of your life—you can't look for a new husband while you're still married. Doesn't work like that.
And I have no idea who the good managers are. No idea. I don't know if I ever will. I'm 34, I've been doing this a long time, but I also know that I've got so much more to do and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. I know in my heart, in my instinct—I don't just trust my instinct, I act on it—and it was a big brave thing for me to do just to go, "Guys, I love you, but I know this ain't right. I'm moving on."
What was not right about it outside of the passion you're looking for? What is it you're looking for from that team?
It's so funny because when someone goes, "What do you look for in a manager?" For me, it's just a feeling. I'm such a hard worker, right? And I'm very disciplined, I'm very professional. I can handle a lot of stuff by myself. I think that exposes a lot of people to do one of two things: go, "She's good," or "I need to work harder." A lot of people go, "She's good."
I just want someone that can teach me about music. Can send me performances from Aretha that I've not seen, or "Hey, have you heard this new music?" or "Have you read this book?" or "You know what I was thinking would be amazing if we did this? Okay, so you want to do this, let's do..."
I need the drive, the passion, people that I can relate to, the way they see the world and feel the world. I get told, and I'm so grateful, I get told all the time, "You're one of the best singers in the world." There's some singers down the street at church that are the best singers in the world that no one will ever hear other than God and the people that are in the church.
But that doesn't mean anything if you're not doing anything with it. I just want a team of people that represent me even when I'm not in the room.
Have you seen what you're looking for elsewhere? Do you know it exists?
I don't even know. I don't know. I know I look at other artists and go, "I should be doing that. There's no reason that I shouldn't be there or I shouldn't be doing this." I know that the music that I make... I've always said this metaphor with my career, right, is I feel like if my career was a shop, I feel like I sell ladders outside but roses on the inside.
So I feel like what I put out there isn't always what I actually sell, that isn't always me. I've been convinced or I'm... I'm always a little afraid to be a diva, to come across like I'm arrogant or this, that and the other. But I know the best moments of my career, point blank, have been when I have followed my instincts, acted on my own heart.
Like when I did the China TV show. Everyone was like, "Why are you doing... why do you want to do a singing competition?" I said, "I just know this is what I need to do." Even the *Rose* album, like, I know that the people that discovered that were who needed to discover it.
I just know, like, the only thing in life that is important is to just not trust your instincts but to act on them, be yourself, and not be afraid. To know that even if you're in a room full of people, that if you know this is going to work, just don't be disheartened by everyone else's projection of their own fear that they can't deliver for you.
I guess you'd also rather fail at being yourself than succeed at being someone else, as well, right?
And I've succeeded at being someone else, 100%. Like, I love to write songs, right? And I can sing, so I'll go in the studio and I can make music. But sometimes I'm like, "I love these songs, but I wouldn't buy this album. I wouldn't put this on and listen to it."
I'm grateful that I know I have been accepted into so many different spaces in the industry, like the musical theater world and the pop world, the R&B world, the soul world. I love music. I grew up around a lot of music. I grew up around a lot of different cultures and races and walks of life, and I'm so happy that that was my foundation. I also need management that represent that. I don't want to walk into rooms that everyone looks the same. I'm tired of it.
I want to make music that makes everybody feel that they're welcome and make music that makes everyone feel accepted and seen and understood. I need my team to reflect that, and I've got to do a better job at making those decisions.
One of the reasons I ask is because when you're an obsessed person, when you're obsessed about your craft, I think we all—and I'm speaking from my own experience here—we all struggle when we don't feel like other people are meeting us there. You know what I mean? I see this with founders specifically in companies where they're just absolutely obsessed and all-in on their dream, and then they look at their team who aren't at that standard, don't seem to care as much, aren't sending the Aretha tracks at 2:00 AM in the morning, aren't going above and beyond. They're thinking, "Well, you must not be right. You must not care, you must not want to be here." So there's a certain expectation management.
No, for sure. 100%. And it's not that I'm saying I expect them to be me. I think it's just people that even want to talk about music. Like, a lot of managers, when was the last time they went to see a show? At the end of the day, to me, when you're a musician and you're in the industry, I need a team of managers that are like in... they're at the party. They're not trying to get me an invite, they have to be there and coming in. You know what I mean?
So I just think that I don't know what it is and I don't have the answers and I don't know. I know what it is that I want. Sometimes I don't know how to say that until I'm experiencing that it's not what I want. Then I'm like, "No, this is not right." But I know that it is also me. I know that I have to be more vocal on what it is that I want and what it is that I deserve, and I just feel like I'm always taken for granted.
I just want to sing and like really be in the mix and work hard. The fire in my belly now is like strong.
What do you mean by being in the mix?
It's weird, when you've had success, people always say to me, "Yeah, but you're Jessie J." And I'm like, "What the fuck does that mean?" I haven't even been invited to the Brits since 2011. So what does it mean? I'm Jessie J. What is my success to you? Because it's different to me, obviously.
I think people go—and a lot of the time, especially other artists—they see that maybe you've had success in places that they haven't or that you've got something that they haven't and they go, "Yeah, but why aren't you just content with that?" Everyone's different with what they need to feel successful.
Does comparison ever get the best of you in your industry?
No. I look at other artists and go, "Man, I wish I was more confident. I wish I was more like..." I see people working a room and I'm so shy that I come across rude. When I'm in a room full of people, I instantly go into that "no one likes me, no one's going to get my sense of humor."
I have so many insecurities that I don't think I've even been consciously aware of until like the last year since COVID and taking a break and then coming back to it. I'm like, "Oh my God, I don't think anyone in this room knows who I am and I don't know why I'm here. I'm so awkward and I hate this and what the hell am I doing and I hate this gown I'm in. What am I doing here?"
I have those moments all the time. The perception and reality is such a weird experience to have of what you think people think of you and then what they do think of you. I don't look at other artists and go, "God, I wish I was doing that." I go, "I wish I was more sociable and more confident at working a room or talking to people."
Because I know that what I have is because I have it and what they have is because what they... you know? I don't ever want to be anyone else. I don't want anyone else to ever be me. But no, comparison isn't the issue for me. It's frustration that I know I'm capable of doing the things that someone else might be doing in my own way, but I don't know how to invite myself into the room.
They're like, "Oh my God, you want to come in? Come in!" But it isn't always me going, "Hi, can I come in?" because I don't know how to do that without feeling like an absolute dickhead. So I just kind of go "Heh" and hope that someone might go, "Maybe Jessie J wants to come in?"
And you want a manager that's going to say, "Jessie J needs to be in there."
Or to go, "Go on, you can do it. Don't get in your head." I think that I can give off that I am... I'm grateful that I can sing and I'm grateful that I love to sing live, like I love that I've never mimed and that's just not who I am. I love that even if my voice is hoarse or whatever, I always put myself like in the exposure firing line, right?
What I love and hate about myself is that I can be put through the most ridiculous experience throughout the day. I could literally be set on fire and I could probably still sing. And I hate that because it means that people go, "She'll be fine whatever the situation."
I think that's a big part of it is that I've trained myself to be good in situations where I haven't had to... haven't had to let people think that they need to level up for me to deliver. Like, that's what has to change. Because what's going on in here and what's coming out and what people are seeing can be two very different things. I'm not connecting those dots for anybody really but myself, because it's only going to make me have a more of an enjoyable experience.
Those four years that you referenced that you disappeared...
Not disappeared, but like I worked but I wasn't like...
What was going on when you disappeared?
Oh my God, what was going on? I did *The Voice* because I wanted to kind of stay in the vibe. I did the China show, the China TV show, which was one of my favorite things I've ever done.
Billions watching?
1.2 billion people watched the final. I bit my tongue before I went out and sang Whitney, because I was so stressed and there was blood in my mouth.
At least you didn't shit yourself.
Oh trust me, I've very close... I have shit myself on stage before. It's so bad, so bad.
Is there a pressure in that four years where people are saying, "Why isn't she giving us an album? What's happening?"
Oh yeah, it's always pressure. Yeah. And it took me a long time to realize that I can't squeeze from the lemons. You've got to nurture the roots a little bit. You know what I mean? You can't just keep asking the lemons to grow and there's no... it's not been potted in the ground.
I just needed to be re-grounded. I just was like... I wrote the whole first album. Second album I wrote pretty much the whole thing but a couple songs. The third album I wrote two songs. And when you listen to it, I wrote two acoustic songs, "Get Away" and "You Don't Really Know Me," and everything else was "Burnin' Up," "Bang Bang." Didn't write any of them. Loved them, but it wasn't where I was.
I was exhausted and I was like, "I'll sing whatever you want." I was so grateful for the success of "Masterpiece," "Burnin' Up," "Bang Bang" in the US, but it was nowhere near where I was mentally. Trying to match those two things was my probably my most important thing that I could have done.
So when that album ended, and then obviously I went for the first... my first big breakup. It wasn't even that it was public, it was just like my first big breakup that people knew about. Lost both my grandparents. I remember when I lost my granddad, I had to perform in Central Park right after.
I was really close to my granddad. He was a professional jazz drummer, traveled the world. We had the same heart problem. Just very much he understood the industry and would always kind of give me advice. Just not being able to grieve and like all of those things and was going to go and I need to take a second to process my life. I haven't stopped since everything took off.
And then I went for a moment where I was like, "I'm done with music. I'm out."
Really?
Oh yeah. Sat with my label, was like, "Drop me. Don't want to do this anymore. Can't do it. I'm emotionally exhausted." Didn't know how to just write songs anymore. I was just like, "What do I even want to sing about?"
When was this?
2016.
So after you'd lost your grandparents and...?
Yeah, 2016. And then I had to do this campaign because I needed money, honestly. Like I was like, "I need to still make money to be famous. You've got to still be protected and I have to wean myself off of this lifestyle if I'm going to not do this anymore."
I got offered to do a campaign with Make Up Forever, which I've always wanted to do anyway because I love the brand. I said I'd love to do it and they're like, "We want an original song." I was like, "I don't want to do an original song because if I do an original song, people think I'm bringing an album and it's a single and blah blah blah." I was like, "I'll do a cover."
So I met this guy called Camper and we was in the studio and he was like, "Yo man, like I got some tracks." I was like, "No tracks. Don't play me anything. I don't want to do this no more." He's like, "Come on, let me just play you something." I was like, "No, no, no. I'm good. Seriously, please don't."
I was like, "Anti." I just need to do this, get the check, go home. Don't make me emotional. Don't... you know it's there. Don't pull out that part of me. I was trying to pretend that I was something different than what I was.
And he played me this beat and he was like, "I'm going to go smoke. I'll be back in five minutes." I was literally just sitting there and he played me this track and I was like... sitting there and the engineer was just like... and I'm behind the engineer and I just start typing on my laptop.
And the engineer's like, "Do you want me to turn this off or...?" And I was like, "No, no, no, it's alright, keep it on." I was like, "Can I just jump in the booth real quick?" And I wrote this song called "Think About That," which became the first single off the *Rose* album.
I remember Camper coming in going, "I don't know who you think you are, but you can't stop writing songs. Like, this is what you do." And I think I'd realized that really up until that point, a lot of my successful music had been this kind of like, "Everything's great! Doesn't mean anything!"
And I was like, that's what people want and I don't know how to deliver that all the time when I can deliver it and I do write songs like that now because I'm not ignoring the pain. So I'm writing about both, so they get both as opposed to me ignoring all the bad stuff so that manifests into everything and then that's all I want to write about.
So I just started to write, then I wrote "Queen" and then I wrote "Someone's Lady" on the spot. Then I wrote this and I wrote that and I kind of had this album and I was like, "What do I do now? Okay," you know? And when I went on that tour, I fired my managers during that tour.
Just firing managers left, right and center. That's just been become a hobby of mine.
Can you imagine how insecure this seventh manager is going to be when you call them?
Or they're not, you know? Thing is, I'm such a loyal person. If you look at everyone in my life—my production, my tour manager, my hair and makeup—10 years deep. I love my people. But I also need you to show me that you really understand how valuable I am, as I would to you.
I know what... it's like dating. Managers is like dating. And I do believe that such an important role doesn't always just fall into your lap and it's right. I honestly think that most artists will admit that they ain't happy with their management. Most people in the industry would admit they're not happy with their agent or their management.
There's always something else they could be doing, and like when you've voiced what you needed and it still doesn't change and then you voice it again and it still doesn't change, and then you go, "Yeah, you know what? I actually think I'd enjoy this more if I didn't have this," especially when you're making money off not doing much.
I'd rather be by myself for a second and it be a bit chaotic and me learn and like go, "Right, what do I need? What do I want?"
"What do I need, what do I want?" That's one of the two questions that I think a lot of people manage to get clarity on during the pandemic.
Exactly.
What was that to you, that whole two years?
The pandemic was probably the worst and most beautiful thing that I think's happened to the world because when else would we all have to stop? And not just stop and be like, "Oh, I'm going to keep going to work and you know, just really take the weekend off," like stop.
Not have our clutches of our hobbies, not have our clutches of our friends and family that we may see or visit or talk to, but really go inwards and have no escape from it.
If I was a fly on the wall in your wherever you were living during the pandemic, what would I have observed?
I mellowed a lot in the pandemic. I let go of a lot of things that I held onto as like clutches to kind of be able to do my job. Like, I'm a very organized person and I realized how much time I wasted on things that really didn't help me, like having a certain amount of this or being overly prepared. I'm a very overly prepared person. I cooked a lot and I wrote an album that's really good, but I just don't know if I really love it.
Why?
I don't know who the audience is. When I listen to the songs, I don't see the people that are listening to it with me. And I have to be able to see that.
How did that happen? If you write something, I'm guessing usually you write it from a place of your own pain or whatever, so there's going to be people out there feeling the same human experience.
Music reflects where you're at, right? Or it should. And in that time, I think it was a very anxious... everyone kind of wanting to falsify this "We're good, right? We're okay! We're good, we're going to be fine." You can feel that in the music.
It just feels a bit like too much. I think that what I think people are craving more than ever right now is just like real. And I also know what I'm good at. I listen to it and go, there's like about five or six artists that I can imagine doing this. I want to make music people only know that I can do.
And it ain't that. So, and it might be that. I might come full circle and go, "You know what, I was wrong. Heh, joke. Took three years but we're here." But I'll get there. There's no right or wrong answers. I don't believe that anything we do in life is right or wrong, I just think we've got to make a decision and then we'll learn from either which way we went.
Has your grief over the last year impacted your perspective on that piece of work?
Yes. Yeah. I feel like my grief is here right now. Like, it just comes up and it comes out my eyes or it comes out in my songs. But it feels like it has a place to live in my life now, which is why I probably feel so vulnerable at the moment. Because as I said to you, losing... having a miscarriage and losing the baby and then most recently losing Jamal Edwards.
When you don't just have one person that you associate with grief, but you have a handful of people that you realize that no one else that you have in your life gives you what they gave you... and you realize that you have to find that for yourself. That's the hardest part of grief for me that I'm experiencing right now.
Like, I don't even... it's like even me crying like this, I can't stop it. Like, they're not tears where I'm like, you know when you can't not cry? Like I'm not even trying to cry, it's just like it's here and it just comes up. It puts everything in perspective that all the things that we worry about and all the things that we are concerned about, nothing matters if someone just loses...
When you watch someone... I don't know if you knew Jamal? You did.
His parents called me yesterday.
Oh, I love Brenda.
I'd spoken to him a few weeks before he had passed. When I was 18, he was my... the evidence that I could be successful. So I would stalk him around Skype and I'd try and get him to speak to me.
It's crazy how much time he made for everyone. I can't... he was like so special. You know, when someone passes, you always want to remind everybody of the good that they were. But he was in another league of... I can't explain it. Like when I was standing at his funeral and just looking around and the impact that he made so one-on-one with everyone he knew, because he never said no. He always had the time.
And I know how much he wanted to live life, and how unfair it feels that of all people that that could have happened to, that it happened to him. I know that his passing has enabled me to make the decisions that I'm making in my life right now and my career with more strength and belief in myself.
Jamal was someone that I spoke to when I didn't want to do this anymore, when I didn't feel like being told you're a great singer was enough. It often wasn't. I would phone him and he would just remind me of the bigger picture and just his energy and the fact that he talked himself into every room and then talked about everyone else.
§02Transcript — part 2
You felt his power when the world found out he had gone. Everybody was sad, even people that didn't know him. Because his legacy—that's been a word that's been used a lot with him—the biggest legacy that I think he, however many businesses he started and things he invested in and platforms he created to elevate everyone else, it was the feeling that he gave people to me that was his legacy.
That's what I miss the most. And when I sang at his homecoming and everyone was like, "How did you do that?" I said, "Because I was singing to him. I was singing for him. It wasn't a performance." I know that he would have loved that. I could just hear him going, "Geez!" you know? "Come on. You wearing vegan shoes and that?"
But I think that the biggest thing that you learn when you lose someone so young that you love and admire so much is that life is too short to sit anywhere other than where you're supposed to be. And if you're sitting at a table where you don't feel like you're being fed, even if you're bringing a plate of food, you politely just leave.
I know that he has inspired me to demand more from myself and from other people in my career. Me and him had so many plans of projects that we were doing together, as I'm sure you guys were probably supposed to connect in some way. And I know that whatever I was supposed to receive from him for those things, I have to find within myself. Because no one will ever be that.
Sorry, I'm so crying right now. I'm such an emotional person and I really live from feeling. I'm not afraid anymore to be vulnerable, and I think that the first line of change with anything through grief or anything like that is talking about how you feel. I think that I'm now in the next few months aware that I'm going to then start actioning the change that I'm speaking about within myself, the energy around me, what I want my career to look like, what I want my music to feel like, what I want the people to be around me to feel like. I love to work hard, but I also like people around me to have a life.
I was re-reading through the process you went through with your miscarriage. You posted about it very soon after and you talked about how... and then you deleted the post, right? Or you archived it.
Archived it, yeah. In a moment of being human, I was just like... you know what it was? It was a moment where I actually had it up and I wasn't in a space to keep posting, but I was tired of going back to my page and that being the thing that people saw. Because I wasn't in that space, but I wasn't in a "Hi guys, I'm going to sing you a song" space or a random caption and a picture of me in an out... you know? So I just was like, I'm not as sad as that, but I'm not anywhere near say the few posts before it yet. So let me just archive it and just kind of go back to zero.
I just can't imagine. I've had people who've sat here and talked to me about miscarriages and the experience, especially the attempt in a family to try and create life and struggling. So seeing that so closely in the experience you shared and the way you shared it, and even listening to you talk about having a suspicion that something was wrong...
Yeah, I had two scans in the same day. Within the first scan and the second scan, the baby had passed. The whole experience was so spiritual for me because obviously I'd been told it wasn't going to be easy for me to get... to have children. And realistically, I'm still discovering that now. I think that any woman can say the amount of women that are told that and then they have children.
A lot of it's mental, where our bodies are at. Obviously when I was going through all that pain and discomfort was when my life was in complete utter chaos with my career and my diet and everything. Your mind and your body's so powerful. As I've gotten older and my life has kind of... I've been able to find tranquility in the chaos.
My pain is so much better and I'm not on any medication anymore. So when I fell pregnant, it wasn't... I know that I know that getting pregnant I don't think would be the issue for me, it would be staying pregnant. When I fell pregnant, I was so overwhelmed with like your whole life just kind of instantly changes. You feel like you're carrying the most precious cargo even though it's the size of like a bean sprout.
And it's a secret, but you don't... and I'm such an open person. It was such a new experience for me to go through something that so many people could relate to but not want to tell anyone, but want to tell everybody, but no I shouldn't just in case. But then it's also something that so many people have gone through so it wasn't like a... you know? I was just like, what do I do?
Then when I booked these shows... obviously I'd booked them I think I'd booked them before I even knew. And then when I decided to do that first show, I remember the day before I found out the baby had passed, I was with a friend of mine. I was like, "How am I going to do this show and not tell everybody? Tell everyone you're pregnant and announce it?"
Yeah, and just say like, because I was like so sick. "People are going to know." So I just remember kind of landing in LA and I was by myself. I live in LA by myself. I have friends and I don't have any family here, but I have my team... well I did have my team. It sounds so savage. It's not, it's so amicable and everything's fine.
But I mean, I do have a lot of team. A lot of them are in the UK still, and I do have people here... but I have friends here and I remember I got here and I was very sick and I was just like, "Right, I'm going to start working out and eating good and like getting on a routine and like I have my house and I'm in the sun."
And then I woke up one morning and I was like, "Oh, I don't feel right." I still had very intense nausea. I just knew something wasn't the same. And I called a doctor—I hadn't actually discovered who I was going to have as my doctor yet because it was still quite early—and I'd gone to see my doctor in London because I was there when I found out.
I went to the doctors and that dreadful silence when you first have a scan and they kind of don't say anything. I was like, "Just tell me the truth, what's going on." She said, "Your baby's heartbeat is very low and there's this like ring." I was like, "Well what does that mean?" She said, "It often means that the baby will have some sort of disability or deformity."
I said, "Okay." She said, "You know, we can have you go and take bloods today and then in a couple of days and just to see if your hormone levels are moving to see if the baby's still growing, but the baby's heartbeat is very weak." I was like, "But it's still there." She's like, "Yeah, it's still there."
That's when I went onto the street and I cried and the man came up to me and said, "You know, this is happening because you're supposed to talk about this. You're supposed to help other people." Instead of going to get bloods, I got in my car and I said, "I'm going to go get a second opinion." I didn't go and get the bloods ever.
I phoned around some friends and no one was available and everyone was at work. I ended up being able to go and see another doctor very quickly. He only had about 10 minutes before he had to go into a surgery. I went in very quickly and he did another scan and he said, "I'm really sorry, there's no heartbeat." That was within about three or four hours of the first one.
I remember going into the car park and getting in the car. One of the first people I spoke to was someone on my team. Obviously, you know, they were supportive and understanding, but one of the first things I was asked was, "Well, what do you want to do about the show tomorrow?"
And even though I understood... I understood it, you know? At the time, I don't think I realized that that actually really shifted the way I processed the experience. I got home and I kind of was focused on, "How am I going to get through tomorrow's show?" more than "What is happening?" I'm now—sorry if you can hear my stomach, I'm really hungry. I need this.
I remember just going home and kind of not processing it. I had a friend come over and then the next day I went straight into glam, I did the soundcheck, and I got on stage and I posted that post. I was by myself, I had no one advising me. My mom, my sister wasn't there to go, "No, don't share this with the world. Like, make it real for you first."
I posted it because I didn't have anyone there to break on. I didn't have anyone to just fall apart on. And that's what I needed. That's what I wanted. So I did the show. The saddest point of that whole experience for me—other than the painful part of it, which I'm... it breaks my heart that so many women have gone through it. Even women I know that I didn't know and I hated that I didn't understand, that I couldn't support them in the way they needed me to because I didn't know.
It's such a physical painful, emotional painful experience that you almost don't want to talk about it because you need people to just to see it to know. But it's such a trip, you know? Obviously everyone's experience is different because of the way the baby passes or it's all different for everybody.
So I remember the hardest part for me wasn't doing the show. The show was actually kind of a weird trippy dream and I was actually just really grateful that I wasn't by myself and that loads of people that I love turned up and came and, you know, were at the show. It was when I got in the car after the show, by myself, and I got home. I opened my front door and I closed the door and I fell to my knees.
That was the worst moment of the whole experience was me realizing that other than my career, being a mother and having a child has been the biggest excitement of my life. I've always been super maternal. I love children. It's just always been something that I can't even explain.
It's just something that I think that you gravitate towards or you kind of learn to gravitate towards. But I felt like I'd been given everything I've ever wanted and then someone had gone, "But you can't have it." But it was still there. I would sing to it every night. When I got home that night and I laid there, I've never felt so lonely in my life.
The empath in me was like, how have so many people experienced this more than once? Like, numerous times. I just remember laying there knowing that it was still there, but it wasn't there. That went on for over a week that I had to then go and do it a non-natural way. It just was the saddest thing.
But at the same time, I knew that the reason it happened was because I wasn't supposed to do it alone. I stand by that now. I knew as soon as I found out that the baby had gone, I phoned my mom and I said, "I know that I'm not supposed to do this by myself. I know that I'm supposed to find someone that wants this as much as I do."
It's such an... honestly, it's a weird one to talk about because it's such a head trip. Because you're grieving not so much even so much the baby at whatever time you lose a baby... I can't even imagine women having stillborns and I just can't even fathom that. You're grieving the life that you imagined, that you prepared in your mind as well.
It's almost a bit like when you're really excited for a holiday and then it gets canceled and you kind of go, "Yeah, it's okay, I don't mind." But inside you're like, "I just bought all these outfits and I got this and I got that." It was like that times a million.
But I always will look for the silver lining in every any moment of pain and sadness. I'm grateful that I got to experience being pregnant and I'm grateful that I got to experience that my body can do it. Not even everyone's can do it. It's honestly brought me to some of the happiest moments that I've felt because it's opened the door for me to love myself deeper.
When I sent you that voice note, it was around the time when you'd done a big post about Dave.
Yeah, you're really bringing out the big guns today, aren't you?
Well, this is the perspective I was looking from from the outside in at what you'd been going through in that moment. You were being very open with the journey. I was blown away by your gratitude even in the wake of your miscarriage, saying things like, "I'm so happy I had morning sickness because I got to experience it." And the Dave post you did—Dave was your security guard.
It's interesting because up until Dave passed, I've lost people that I know of, but real close people? He was one of the first. The hardest part about for me, losing someone like that... when you've had experiences that no one else knows about.
When you lose somebody that he woke me up every morning and was the last person I'd see close my hotel room door before I went to sleep, and would put on the "do not disturb" and be like, "Right, see you in the morning, boss," for years and years and years through me trashing a hotel room in Australia when I lost my mind, to me fancying this guy that he told me "Not today," or having the best success of a song or selling out a show or not selling out a show or having to cancel a show.
He was the person that came to visit me, the first person that came to visit me when I just had my operation when I was told I couldn't have kids. He was my guy. He was my big brother. When there was turbulence, he held my hand for nine hours on the plane. When you've gone through those experiences but you know you can only grieve alone because no one else has experienced those moments with you...
No one else was a part of really our thing. Because it was just me and him. He's my security. I would make him get on the rollercoaster. He'd be like, "No, no, I'll just watch." "Come on!" and he was so big and he would just sit next to me be like, "I know you like it!"
There was a part of him that I know I only got to see. It's an unusual experience to be pushed together with someone that closely for so long. We would go for a walk after every show. Whether it was 2:00 AM, it was raining, "Get me outside, I need some air. I need to come back down to earth. I need my ringing in my ears to go. I need to like have a packet of crisps or a sandwich, I just need to..."
And usually no one would be out because it would be late. So I could walk around, I'd be in the rain soaking wet and he'd be like, "You're going to get sick," and I'd be like, "Germs make you sick, rain doesn't make you sick."
So we would have these conversations. And obviously I knew him and I knew his own battle with his own sadness and his own... when you tour for a living, when you're on tour you want to be at home and when you're at home you want to be on tour. There's this like push and pull of like, where do I belong? "I want to keep moving but I crave stillness, but when I'm at home it's too still, and when I'm on tour it's too much moving and you crave stillness and then when you're still it's like, I need to move."
So I knew so much about him and he knew so much about me. And I protected him as much as I could as he protected me. One of the most important things for me now—and has always been that because of my dad too—is men need to talk.
Whenever I've got into a relationship, I'm so adamant on my partner having their own life and their own group of friends that they hang out with, that they talk to, and that they do the things that they enjoy. I don't want my life to become your life or to feel like we have to be intertwined all the time.
Women have grown up with blogs and magazines and books and this, that and the other. That's one of the things I loved about you and this is why I said yes to talking to you, because men don't talk enough about how they feel. Point blank. You know, and almost are raised to go, "Be respectful to women," but not, "It's not be respectful to yourself."
I watched people react to Dave, who was this big, 6'5", tattooed, bald guy going, "Oh, you going to beat me up?" before they'd even spoken to him. And me going, "Him beat you up? Like, he'd catch a fly in a cup and put it outside."
Between Dave and Jamal and even the baby, the things that those people gave me in my life are things that I know I have to find in myself. My anxiety comes a lot from my fear of not being safe, and Dave gave me that. Jamal always gave me self-belief. My biggest anxieties are self-belief and my fear.
So losing those two people in my life, and then obviously the baby was just such a huge part of who I want to be in my life and what I want to give to my children one day... I think that's why the grief is so present right now because I'm in the process of trying to give myself the things that they gave me.
Very special guys. And Dave was hard work, hilarious, took no bullshit, and had my back 100%. I've not had anyone like that since.
In the photos, you both look like jokers.
Oh my God, he was the biggest joker, the biggest clown. He would send me shit while I was sitting in *The Voice* chair to try and make me laugh. We had all these jokes. We lived in this house in Australia together and it was whale season. So we would watch whales, like we would sit and have dinner and then we would sit with binoculars and we would sit and watch the scene to see if we could find whales.
So it became this thing that every time we'd be in the middle of a conversation, we'd be like, "Whale!" and then we'd all run to the window. So it became that thing for years that if there was an awkward moment or one of us wanted to leave somewhere, we would say "Whale." That was like our code thing.
And then he had come up with an excuse?
Yeah, or we'd just laugh because we'd be like, if someone said something stupid, he'd be like, "Whale." He just got me, you know? And it's very hard to find people like that. And I do believe that you're right when you said about expectation.
I've had a handful of people in my career that have loved me and seen me and heard me and felt me and understood me and respected me and elevated me consistently that are still here with me or aren't anymore for whatever reasons, whether they've moved on or they've passed away.
I feel sometimes safer talking to Dave—this probably makes me sound crazy—at an event and imagining him there than I do with another security guard. And I know that may not make any sense to anyone, but I just imagine him there and I feel safe and I feel calm. He's definitely given me a gift that I don't think he even ever knew he did. I don't think he realized how special he was to me.
I wish I could have protected him from himself like he protected me from myself. That's the bit that hurts me the most. But I know he would want me to live my life as hard as I could, which is why I do try make decisions that I know only propel me to a happier and more peaceful and secure environment for myself and my future family.
And he's so clearly still with you. What are you like with letting people in? Having been through a lot of loss and these various situations you've been through in your life, do you let people in easily? Because one would assume from some of your characteristics—the openness, the vulnerability—that people could just stride right in.
It's probably something I'm working on all the time is that I do let people in. I definitely give people more than they give me most of the time. But I also think that's my nature. I'm a hostess, I'm a very like a caregiver. I like to cook and entertain and like care for people and look after people.
I think there's a thin line of people presuming that I have someone else that's going to do that for me, and then also people that isn't just that that's not their love language. But also I'm very guarded and I think that definitely in the last few years have I've got way more closed in...
I wouldn't say that I have a fear of letting people in. I think I let people in but maybe not to the real, real me. There's only a few people that really know how much my brain is always working.
Who are those people?
I have like five people. Childhood best friends, my parents are definitely people that we've gone through our... as you do with your parents. We carry so much of our parents, good and bad. And I think that all of us know that...
I remember me and my dad when the tables turned and I had to go to him, "Do you want to look at yourself? Like I love you but you know, I carry some of your traits that I don't like that I'm trying to heal and I'm sitting with you and I can see you doing them and it's irking me and triggering me and we need to talk about it." I'm grateful that I have people that are open to challenging me as much as I am challenging them.
But yeah, I don't have that many people that I trust wholeheartedly. I don't. But I don't need that many. And I'm grateful that I even have one because some people don't even have one. And they're the people that I cry for too because I think about how lonely they must be. Look at my life, I'm so lucky. I'm so grateful for everything I have. And I know that we've sat and spoken at probably the most worst parts of my life in the most worst moments, but I also live a life of absolute peace and happiness that I couldn't even fathom someone had told me that this is what was my life was going to look like. I'm beyond grateful.
What about love then?
Love. Love. It's so funny because I wrote a book when I was... how old was I when I wrote a bloody autobiography at 12? You know, you get a book deal and you're like, "Okay." And when I look back at it now, it's like this whole section of like, "I like ice cream," and I'm just like, who read this? It's literally called *Nice To Meet You*. It's like my career so far in like 2012, it had been like six months in.
But I remember obviously with regards to like me talking about relationships from the beginning and the impact that that had, positively and negatively, to myself, my relationships, my career, how I hurt people, how people hurt me... I wrote this big chapter on love and personal love, and then I deleted it all and just put a little thing of "I need to keep something personal and protected."
Because if I talk about everything so openly all the time, it's allowing opinions and poison to seep in that really do nothing for it but can actually do something to it. And I think that my last public relationship...
Which one was that?
Well, it wasn't even that I wanted it to be public.
But the person was public.
No, it wasn't even that, that was the one before the last one. It was that I was frustrated that fame is weird because even though people go, people choose personally not to post or not to speak or not to be seen, you can't live a normal relationship if you don't aren't seen. Even if I don't post a relationship, these people will hide in bushes until they get a picture and then you don't want them to have the control of what they say it is.
I know what you're talking about now.
Yes. So obviously I was in a very, very public relationship and it was a very different experience for me.
Good, bad, ugly?
It was actually very interesting because I felt like I was experiencing what my exes had felt like being... I was them and he was me. He was on a whole 'nother level of fame and going through a very personal time publicly and I was...
He was one of the biggest actors in the world.
Yes. And he's an incredible father and was going through a really personal traumatic time. It was just a lot of emotional collisions, you know, of like both of our lives at the same time. We got on really well. But again, that same thing is that when you're famous, you can go for dinner on a date—how many dates have you been on where you would never see them again? But you get photographed and you're both famous and they put it on the internet and go, "Exclusive!" and you're like...
And that wasn't what happened, but you know, we got seen and it kind of propelled into something probably more than maybe it was, also because of what was going on in his own life. Then there was this comparison and it was just so many things that...
I always say that there's a lot of things that fame control that you can't control, and there's a lot of things in this life that we ask for and then there's some things that we don't but happen anyway. And so that whole experience definitely made me go, "I just need more privacy." I need to have something that isn't always me talking about it and like being open because even if people really understand it, everyone just... everybody slows down at the car crash. Very rarely do people get out and help.
And now people don't just slow down, now people slow down and they film, they zoom in, they comment, they send to somebody else, they will pretend something else happened that was there that wasn't... like that's what it is now, right? So then when I met someone in the pandemic and who wasn't famous, and I was very protective of that, when then when we did get seen, I was like, "I don't want to talk about it."
And we were together for like dating for maybe a month and then obviously it was put out everywhere on this one picture. And I was like, you know, my frustration of like the way they worded all of it. I just was like, "No, this isn't what it is. If you want to... I hate that the press can control the narrative."
I hate that. But I also get it, but it doesn't mean that you sometimes don't just go, "Grrr!" you know?
And you did a post basically saying, "I want to control the narrative myself."
Exactly. And it wasn't me going like, "We're going to get married and we're going to do this," it was just like, "This is what it is, this is who it is, and da da da, and piss off." Like just... and then they did piss off to some degree. You know, it was like, okay. And then the picture they posted of me and I laughed about it, I looked like an old man that owned a boat that was wearing a wig. Like it was so bad and I was just like, "Really guys, this is the picture you're going to use of both of us?" and it was just terrible.
But there's that thin line of like, "Fuck everybody, I'm going to live the life I want to live and I'm going to experience love." My mom says to me, "Fall in love as many times as you can. It will stick or it won't."
How many times have you been properly in love?
Once. Because I can actually see my life with that person and I've never had that before.
Sounds recent.
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Who knows? We might never know. And I may never know. I just feel like love is a constant moving experience. And I think that when you meet new people, you always want to dumb down what you've experienced because you don't want to make them feel bad. But the truth is, all we're ever doing is going, "Is this love? Do you want to be with me? Are we going to get married? Can we live together? Would you take a bullet for me? Do I really want to meet your parents?" It's a lot.
When you walked in, you said... I asked you what's front of mind and you said, "I'm thinking about like the next chapter of Jessie J and my life." What is that next chapter as we look forward?
Acting on my instincts, making music that I love, making music that feels like it speaks to myself as much as it speaks to other people, finding a team of people that have the same passion as me, and giving my personal life as much nurturing as my career.
And acting as well?
Yeah, I'm acting right now.
No, I mean, you said you... I know that acting was a big part.
Acting, comedy. I really want to do comedy. I really want to do stand-up. Me sitting here crying for the last three hours isn't giving that people that impression but knock-knock. I definitely want to do acting at some point.
Like the West End stuff?
I mean, yeah. I mean right now I'm in the process of like trying to create a one-woman show, which is what Jamal was helping me with, which is a combination of the things that I love the most, which is therapy and talking and honesty and emotions, standing in the middle of them and feeling the storm, the joy and the sunshine and the rain and all of it. Singing and singing—when I mean singing, singing as hard as I can, as loud and high and as soft and as low and everything as I can, and making people laugh.
Combining those three things. Don't know what it looks like, have an idea but you know, life does this. And preparing my body to try again to be a parent, you know, at some point in the next few years, for sure.
Thank you.
Thank you. Are you going to write notes about me in your book now?
No, actually this is part of a tradition we have here where the last guest—who you'll never know who they are—writes a question for the next guest and that just keeps going.
Oh, I love that.
It's like all the guests are actually speaking to each other but they just don't know who they're talking to. The question for you is: "What are you clear about now that one year ago you didn't know?"
All my dreams, personally and professionally, are able to happen with people by my side and I don't have to do everything by myself. I think that's the biggest thing for me is I'm a very independent, "I've got... I can do it, I don't need help, I don't need support" person. That's bullshit. I need people around me that want to do what I want to do and I enjoy being a team player. And I don't think that was clear to me a year ago.
Well, Jessie, thank you. Thank you for the conversation. As I said to you before we started recording, there was a reason why I wanted to speak to you, and it's for all the reasons that I've discovered today. You've been through so much, but on the other side of that is tremendous wisdom and the willingness to share it with people who... you've seen from even the way you've shared your story and the impact you've had when you do those acoustic sets.
I'm grateful to never to think that I've had it any worse than anyone else because I talk about it. It's knowing that I'm giving someone space that may not be able to find that for themselves to grieve or to feel something that they need to feel.
Exactly.
And the other tremendous part of my admiration to you comes from this watching you realize that the only way to live is if you're emotionally in alignment with what you're doing and it's making you feel good. And that really is the guiding force of our lives.
Exactly. English people say, "Trust your gut." Literally, it's your second brain. Trust your gut, you know, and don't just trust your instincts, act on them. If something doesn't feel right, it's because it's not.
And the other part, the third part, is your talent, which is... "Hey..." like that? I was thinking more the Whitney thing out in China. Oh Whitney, isn't she the best? But you are just... different. Like when I listen to your music... I'll be honest with you, I don't listen to loads of music in your genre, but you and maybe one other artist can get me.
And that's a credit to your talent and also what's behind the music. You can feel it with certain people. When I was doing the research for this episode, I got... I'm like "F—" because I'd get two hours in listening to one of your... listening to the *Rose* album or something else... "F—, I need to research," and then I'd play another song and get sucked back into it emotionally and it was taking me to places.
For me, that's what like really good artists do, they take me to places and take me to that place and liberate me from whatever was there. And that's what you do. So wherever you are in your life, you've always got that. No one can ever take that, you've got it and few have. So thank you for that gift and thank you for sharing all of it with the world.
Thank you. Appreciate that so much.
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