Jessie J: I Quit Music, Deleted An Album, Then Changed My Mind | E139

could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this please hit the follow or subscribe button it helps more than you know and we invite subscribers in every month to watch the show in person i felt like i had 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 [Music] 2015-16 it was really the first time that i'd had fame i didn't know how to cope with it 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 for 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 wow i love it so without further ado i'm stephen 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 [Music] i tend to believe that people's family are their foundation and when i was reading through the story of your family in your early years actually seemed pretty idyllic yeah i mean we weren't my mum and dad i didn't grow up with loads of money like we weren't hard hard but we weren't rich um but when i think about it again like 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 so like we would go camping in the garden and my dad would pretend to be a bear in the middle of the night and we i believe to this day it was a bear like you know my mom's like looking out the window because she's gone in because she's like i ain't doing this and my dad yeah my dad's peeing in a bucket yeah they're still doing it like not in front of us because that would be weird but like just they used to just create these experiences and it was all about feeling and that's what i remember the most from my childhood like more so than anything else like 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 like they would it was it would never 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 but 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 a mental 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 um stubborn man and so growing up he's very in touch with like his feelings and his emotions which isn't common in a lot of men you know and we grew up talking and i spent a lot of time with my dad when i was young and he used humor in his job and with us as me and my two sisters and his relationship with my mom she made her laugh and even now my dad's humor is his defense his his way of hiding his way of making friends his way of healing and 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 and you always feel safe when you're very very sad and then you laugh the emotions always kind of they intertwine like deep sadness and like intense happiness are so close together that like feeling when you're at a funeral and everyone's crying and then someone makes a joke and everyone bursts into laughter like that's the line that my dad is incredible at kind of balancing you're good at that too because which is where i get it from some of your hardest moments in your yeah 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 you know and to to talk about something really really intense um or go through a moment that's hard but then make make a joke or make light of the situation or laugh at ourselves you know and then like go into bird's eye view and look down and go look at our slot you paid 30 quid to come and cry you know what i mean and it's like and it's that thing if you just come in tap him back into reality and just going oh god like it's not i'm not alone like and it's it's good to laugh and laughter can feel as to me as connective 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 yeah what was the the first time you went to hospital first memory i have i think i was eight and we was in epping forest if you end up in forestry probably not well you can go it's lovely in the forest yeah so yeah it always starts in a forest and it's like an episode of black mirror so me and my sisters my dad were in the park and he said right let's race to the car so we started to run and i just remember i couldn't breathe and i collapsed and the next thing i remember is my dad picking me up and run into the car we got into the car we went to the hospital and my dad has wpw my granddad had wpw which is a heart problem and so i that was the first time i was taken in with a regular irregular heartbeat i was put on very heavy medication as a child um which would cause me to have like seizures and pass out um and have like it was just awful um so i was in and out of hospital a lot as a child it was weird like 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 so there was always this kind of balance that kept me present in myself and not and i almost think that that was that's been my blessing in my life like my health has always kept my feet on the ground um 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 remember like looking at going god they need a magazine or they haven't eaten anything today or i wonder how they're feeling i don't remember being in pain or coming around from an operation or it's weird it's trippy it's almost like it didn't happen you define yourself as an empath you said it when you came yeah for sure and 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 don't know i try and use it as the best i can because i know it's just who i am when you're in hospital one of the things that you saw was um which inspired big white room yeah was a boy laid next to you yeah so i was in a it was a ladybird ward and um there was a little boy in the room with me and i remember waking up in the middle of the night and he was crying and praying and had like all of these like tubes and you know like the bloodlines and stuff coming with this what's it called i don't know what it's called but like he just 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 i want to stay here i really want to be here and he was i can't i ca he was probably 10 or 11 and i woke up and i remember just sitting and watching him for hours and just listening to him and then the next morning i remember seeing his mum come in and just taking all the balloons and i said to my mom like i was upset and i just remember saying why you know why why wasn't he why isn't he here now like he asked so nicely and my mom just said you know sometimes god needs his angels closer to him and i remember that moment stayed with me for years you know i was probably 10 when that happened and when i was 16 17 i had to write a song about it was the first song i wrote and it stayed with me that was the way i needed to let that feeling out you know 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 like before you know and 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 um 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 that the health issues in your sort of pre-18 years in terms of going in and out of hospital uh not very long i mean it was it was a it was chunks of time and 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 kind of electrocute your heart into a normal rhythm and it didn't work so i get a regular heartbeat now but i just i don't take any medication i believe in good diet and like how i feel and i try and do everything the holistic natural way um 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 and i was i got you know i was in a girl band and i was at the brit school and i was like i'd cut my hair and i was a veto sassoon model and 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 you know and then i had a stroke when i was 17. and then it kind of again kind of took a dip and then i'd get back on my feet and i'd get signed and then i broke my foot you had a stroke at 17. you had a stroke in hamley's you know it's the toy stop yeah yeah yeah yeah i worked there doing now jazz now art um and i was like i don't feel very well and i was like doing a lot i've always been someone that's like overexerted myself and probably doesn't know when to take a break and yeah i lost the feeling on the right side of my body for almost a month and now all my issues have been on this side like this side of my body so i know like it's so weird cause like when people go my god you had a stroke and i'm like yeah i don't even think about it i don't define i don't want to define myself on it i don't want to introduce myself with it because like i'm grateful it happened because if those things hadn't happened in my life you know the many years the the uterus issues i've had the fertility thing the miscarriage like you grow in moments of sadness and pain you know and i grew up in those moments and i didn't take my body for granted and 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 and it was almost like a very young age a very pivotal time of my career kind of starting to take off and more of a this could actually be my life why my body was 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 [ __ ] this up you know and so it almost feels like my health has just always had my back when my life has gone like this it's always kind of going to take a second and for a long time i felt like i was cast with this spell that like every time i kind of got somewhere like i was just about to break america and i broke my foot and i had to pull out of opening for katy perry on tour and all these things that like you know you've got your thing you sit with your team and you go this is going to happen in this and great and everyone's excited and then i get sick and you know even to 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 and then my meniere's and i went deaf in this ear and but now i don't even want to release that album because i don't really like the music really and i'm like 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 but every time something happens to my body i'm always like okay what am i not listening to like so i feel like that's my personal way of looking at it in my journey so like when you say you know how long was that for it's kind of been my whole life you know even up until recently when you know right when i got my voice back and i started doing these shows and i finally was told i could sing again and i phoned my agent and i was like i have to do like a i don't know like a residency somewhere and i started doing these acoustic shows and i was like i really want to do stand up you know 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 you know not because the show must go on but to me like jessie j and jessica cornish like jessie j's just a brand name they go hand in hand they're the same person you know the reason that my music exists is because my life exists you know i write about [ __ ] i go through you know 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 this i know this happened for a reason you know like the day that i found out that my the baby had died this man and i you know 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 i'd my body had gone numb like i was just on the street and i i was standing there and i couldn't move i literally just stood at this bush for like two hours and i was phoning everybody that i knew to try and answer the phone and just because i was by myself i was in santa monica and 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 and 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 like why why do i have to help someone else and then i realized that is what i've been called on to do like i know that what i do is so much bigger than me it's not about the song or the the accolades or the awards or this it's about the feeling that you can hand over to someone that they can't find themselves and 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 and 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 and i know that like going back to what you asked me before like 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 that with them and give them a different perspective as they can me but obviously i do it on a maybe a bigger platform it is 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 yeah for sure but it isn't always the case um but i think it's just understanding that like 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 like i don't want people to think i'm this always sick always ill always have something going on like didn't she just go deaf that's the comments didn't she just like da da da da you know like when you go into a new relationship people 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 the show after the day after had a miscarriage like in the sense of the reaction of of going i must the show must go on i must i after that show i surrendered to my pain and for nobody else but myself and that's something that i've i don't think i've ever done and a lot of grief came out grief of of grandparents of friends of people that i've lost that it all came out in that moment and still is to be honest it was only four months ago that this happened five months ago so 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 [ __ ] and i'm broken and it's awful and i'm sad but knowing that the light would come and it did and it is um 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 well 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 and 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 and they were like you have ibs and i was like no i don't i know i don't have ibs like and they would just be like yes you do that's what it is and i was like no i know myself i know my body i know it's not ibs and i stuck with it and i was like i went to keep kept going to see different doctors and i finally got diagnosed with endometriosis which is very common and then i had an operation that you know they took all the endometriosis my endometriosis out i went home i still live with my parents i went home and i was still in agony and i was still having the episodes and so 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 and also and he was like i would recommend you to do that you know this is 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 and that's when i went plant-based that was you know years and years and years ago and it definitely helped and improved and i changed my lifestyle and kind of slowed my pace down you know after that record the bang bang sweet talker record and i took a long time not off but just slowed down and that's when i wrote the rose album and so there's like behind the scenes there's always a story for everybody um but yeah that moment was super pivotal for me a lot of things happened at once i was reading that i think it was around the time you're in australia yeah in 15 2016 time and you were you'd lost your grandparents yeah within like four or five months of each other you had a breakup yeah i broke up my first breakup that was kind of public because i was someone that was just you know was famous and just discovering myself you know like it was really the first time that i'd had fame in america too and so like when i was famous in the uk like i obviously i came here a lot and it was kind of great because i was like i could just do whatever i want and no one cares so it was kind of like i could just 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 you know like or just come up to me with a camera phone or whatever and i just i needed that i was still quite young and you know and i i miss staring at people and getting away with it you know what i mean just like watching people eat or like staring at someone in the car next to you and knowing they're not going to look over and be like you know and so i remember coming here and just having that and then i didn't have that as much anymore here and i just felt really trapped really trapped like 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 and in that time that's when i moved here in 2015. when you say trapped what's the symptoms of being trapped what is that what does that manifest 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 felt it always felt like i was being followed that was the biggest thing where my anxiety came from and someone telling me or giving me something that i would then have to focus on that i never saw like that i have a big jaw that i have like this or i have cellulite or i have that like where i would never even it wasn't a thing and then someone would go have you ever noticed that she like says like um or like like like like a lot and then i'd be like conscious of the way i spoke and you know like as when you first get somebody commentating on everything you do in r i was just like how do i how do i live unconsciously now like how do i go to the beach without feeling like i'm in my underwear in front of someone hiding in the bushes taking pictures how do i do that you know and i still don't know sometimes even now and so i just i felt like i couldn't it felt like i had to re-learn how to do life like i i was comfortable going in front of a hundred thousand people and singing a song no problem but going to perpetual in my car i literally was i don't even know how to do it i would drop the thing like i i like wouldn't be able to lock the thing on the car because i would feel like someone was watching me and like i it just destroyed me and i remember just i wouldn't leave my hotel room like i went out and bought like 50 hats and even though it probably wasn't as bad as that no you don't go to how like and i get that even me talking about it now like i'm conscious that the people watching this going all right well you [ __ ] ask to be famous get over it like 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 and no one has a lot of space to be um like to have any empathy for that and that and i'm not talking about all the time and just about 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 like no one's gonna hurt you you know and i just felt so alone i felt like i was hovering above everybody in every room i was in like i wasn't able to just exist playing a game at a friend's house that i was always just like is everyone thinking about what i'm saying and they're going to repeat it and so i just panicked all the time of 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 i was like we 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 demar i mean there were times where i then would almost i remember 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 that was like here let me just be what they say i am because that's what people think i am anyway and even when i am nice like someone 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 like when you're like at that it's weird it's like a and that was like and i'm talking about that time and it was like peak kind of everywhere fame saturday night saturday night tv and it was just such a trippy experience and 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 jessie that was going through that that wasn't staying in those hotel rooms and that was yeah stumbling to put the petrol in our car and reacting to the media what would you what advice would you give her bird's eye view babes just imagine 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 like get outside get some air just get outside go to a park like take a walk you know and and also be honest to your friends and your family about how you're feeling and allow them to be there for you because i think everyone was kind of everybody was kind of swelled 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 and then everyone around you doesn't instantly go are you okay they go this is great isn't it amazing are 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 and i'm a little scared and 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 you know and your and your mind is going who do i talk to about this where do i and 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 you know so yeah did you find anyone that understood um 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 i don't want don't send me a link of me on the beach because i was there my friends and my family sending me links of people criticizing me have you seen this [ __ ] i'm like yeah i said to my mom and dad and my brothers and sisters super early doors yeah don't just do that in the comments section on this website tell me don't send me the link i'm not bothered i'm not looking if you want 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 like 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've i may or may not have been forced to read those comments because that's the other thing like 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 and sometimes you're like they 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 yeah you see it you've got to create basically a brand as you call it yeah you make the distinction between jessica and jesse and whatever and they're really the same person but yeah man same person is there a point in your life where you 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 cat suit and like my bob wig to like like a family barbecue because i just didn't know how to like tone it down i was just on this hamster wheel of like dude like and i just didn't know how to like i didn't know who i was away from working you know so like one thing i realize now is that you are a product of your environment you are a product of your environment and i see that in my my niece and my nephews you know like and all the young people i know and i watch my best friends and my close family members have children and i see how different their kids are because they they are a reflection of their environment you know and the beauty that they can have if they're brought up in the middle of nowhere in the countryside but then they're like not streetwise and they kind of you know and all these things and so like when i look at like how i was in those pivotal moments of my life and i think this is why i have so much empathy for young art like younger artists and like i really care about how they're protected um and just young people in general like protected from what the world is telling them they are as opposed to them discovering themselves like 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 like i didn't know how to switch off like i would literally have to leave the house on a full face of makeup and like without 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 like i was so stressed about what to wear and how to do them and it was so dumb it's not even like important but it was moments like that when i was just like god i need to chill out i'm not jesse 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 unhealthy fast it was just everything was so speeded up and i was like what do i want to what are my hobbies what do i like to do other than just sing and travel i can travel to sing i don't know and that's when i was like okay i need to take a second and 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 it's one thing i will say about my record label you know for as much as we you know you always have your your your disagreements with anybody in power and anybody you know that's you work for or work with or work under or work next to like but my record label have always supported me um to the best of their ability and and to the best that i understand like 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 for my label no did that matter to me at the time no because i knew that the music was great yeah would have been great had they been more supportive but it didn't again it didn't def 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 that like 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 kind of start again and 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 and 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 like people that are immediately around me like an assistant a manager that kind of manager yeah managers assistant no they're just a team that's where i'm at right now like you know i just let go of my sixth manager two days ago yeah no hard feelings no great 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 i know what i deserve and it's taken me a long time to be confident in saying like i know i can really sing but i've just never had a team that really get it that like had the same passion as me and like live for like the moments and like taking risks and not being afraid and like to like you know and i'm i guess maybe i'm talking about it right now because if someone that's meant to be for me in my life might see this because you know like i say all the time like people go what are you going to do now like if you've got a new manager lined up and i'm like no i didn't let them go because i've secretly been meeting people like that's not who i am like one thing for sure is i'm loyal and like i'm respectful but like when you're your manager is like a it's almost like a marriage you know 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 it doesn't work like that and i have no idea who good managers are no idea and 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 and 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 wasn't right about it outside of the passion you're looking for what is what is it you're looking for from that team that manager it's so funny because when someone goes what do you what are you looking for in a manager for me it's just a feeling i just thought like it's someone that i'm such a hard worker right and i'm very disciplined i'm very professional i can hand a lot of stuff by myself and i think that exposes a lot of people to do one of two things go she's good or i need to work harder and a lot of people go she's good and 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 like you know what i was thinking be amazing if we did this like okay so you want to do this i need the drive the passion like people that i can relate to like the way they see the world and feel the world and like like 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 than god and the people that are in the church but that doesn't mean anything like if you're not doing anything with it you know and i and and i just want a team of people that represent me even when i'm not in the room you know have you seen what you're looking for elsewhere i don't even know i don't even 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 i shouldn't be doing this or i know that the music that i make like 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 rose is on the inside so i feel like what i put out there isn't always what i actually sell that isn't actually always me that i feel like i'm convinced or i'm 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 like 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 is she doing why why do you want to do a singing competition i said just i just know this is what i need to do you know even the rose album like i know that the people that discovered that were who needed to discover it and 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 that this is gonna 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 one honey p that's one hundred percent yeah that's good one honey yeah just professional you're like um but like i love to write songs right and i can sing so i go in the studio and i can make music but sometimes i'm like i love this i love these songs but i wouldn't buy this album i wouldn't i wouldn't put this on and listen to it and i'm grateful that i know i've been accepted into so many different spaces in the industry like the musical theater world and like the pop world the r b world the soul like i'm so i love music and i grew up around a lot of music and i grew around a lot up a lot around different cultures and races and walks of life and i'm so so happy that that was my foundation and that's what i am and i also need management to represent that i don't want to walk into rooms that everyone looks the same you know i'm tired of it and i wanna make music that makes everybody feel like that they're welcome and make music that makes everyone feel accepted and seen and understood and i need my team to reflect that and i got to do a better job at making those decisions one of the reasons i ask is if you've seen it somewhere else because it's because when you're a obsessed person you're obsessed about your craft um 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 oh yeah you know what i mean and i see this with founders specifically in companies where they're 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 you on sending the aretha tracks at two a.m in the morning yeah aren't going above and beyond and they're thinking well you you must not be right you must not care you must not want to be here um so there's a certain expectation no for sure 100 and it's not that i'm saying i'm i expect them to be me i think it's just people that even want to talk about music yeah yeah you know like a lot of managers like when was the last time i went to see a show like at the end of the day to me that 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 like coming you know what i mean it's like so i just i 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 to say that until i'm experiencing experiencing that it's not what i want and then i'm like no like this isn't right but i know that it is also me and 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 and i just i just i just want to sing and like really be in the mix and work hard like the fire in my belly now is like what do you mean by being relaxed it's weird when you've had success like people always say to me like yeah but you're jessie j and i'm like what the [ __ ] does that mean i haven't even been invited to the brit since 2011. so what does it mean i'm jesse j like what is my success to you because it's different to me obviously you know and 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 have and they go yeah but why aren't you just content with that you know and everyone's everybody's different with what they need to feel successful does comparison ever get the best of you in your industry no you've never looked at another artist and gone maybe i should be doing more or no i look at other eyes and go man i wish i was more confident i wish i was more like i see people work in a room and i'm so shy that i come across rude when i'm in a room a lot with a lot of people i instantly go into that no one likes me no one's going to get my sense of humor like i have so so many insecurities that i don't think i've even been consciously aware of until like the last year since covered and like taking a break and then coming back to it and i'm like oh my god like i don't think anyone in this room knows who i am and i don't know why i'm here and 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 like i have those moments all the time and the perception and reality is such a weird like experience to have of what you think people think of you and then what they do think of you and it's i don't look at other eyes and go god i wish i was doing that i go i wish i was more sociable or more confident at work in 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 like 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 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 and i'm like and they're like oh my god like 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 [ __ ] so i just kind of go 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 or to go go on you can do it stop 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'm love to sing live like i love that i've never mind and i just that's not who i am i love that like i even if my voice is horse or whatever i always put myself like in the exposure like firing line right what i love and hate about myself is that i can be put through the most ridiculous experience like 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 and i think that's a big part of it is that i've been i've trained myself to be good in situations where i haven't had people i haven't 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 and 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 i don't know how to discredit disappeared 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 in the vibe i did the china show yeah the china tv show which was one of my favorite things i've ever done billions watching 1.2 billion people watch the final and i bit my tongue before i went out and sang whitney because i was so stressed and i was just blood in my mouth um um trust me i'm very close to i have [ __ ] myself on stage before that's what i'm saying i'm so bad so bad it's so bad fingers in the news i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast my girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when i was having a shower and she said to me that she tried the heel protein shake which lives on my fridge over there and she said it's amazing low calories you get your 20 odd grams of protein you get your 26 vitamins and minerals and it's nutritionally complete in the protein space there's lots of things but it's hard to find something that is nice especially when consumed just with water and that is nutritionally complete and that has about 100 calories in total while also giving you your 20 grams of protein if you haven't tried the heal protein product do give it a try the salted caramel one if you put some ice cubes in it and you put it in a blender and you try it is as good as pretty much any milkshake on the market just mixed with water it's been a game changer for me because i'm trying to drop my calorie intake and i'm trying to be a little bit more healthy with my diet so this is where heel fits in my life thank you hill for making a product that i actually like the salted caramel is my favorite i've got the banana one here which is the one my girlfriend likes but for me salted caramel is the one is there a pressure in that four years where people are saying why isn't she giving us an album oh yeah it's always pressure yeah and i it took me a long time to realize that i can't you can't squeeze from the lemons you gotta 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 and i just needed to be regrounded i just was like i wrote the whole first album second album i wrote pretty much the whole thing by 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 burning up bang bang didn't write any of them loved them but it wasn't where i was and i was exhausted and i was like just i'll sing whatever you want and i was so grateful for the success of masterpiece burning up bang bang in the us but it was nowhere near where i was mentally and 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 kind of big just my first big breakup it wasn't even that it was public it was just like my first big breakup that people knew about um lost both my grandparents i remember when i i lost my grandad i had to perform in central park right after and i was really close to my granddad he was a professional jazz drummer i traveled the world we had the same heart problem just you know just very much he understood the industry and would always kind of give me advice and just not being able to grieve and like all of those things and was just going to go and i need to take a second to like process my life like i haven't stopped since everything took off um 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 labels like drop me don't want to do this anymore i can't do it i'm emotionally exhausted didn't know how to just i just didn't know how to write songs anymore i was just like what do i even want to sing about when was this 2016. so after you lost your grandparents and yeah 2016. and then i'm and then i had to do this campaign cause i needed money honestly like i was like i need to still make money to be famous like you gotta still be protected and i have to like wean myself off of this lifestyle if i'm gonna not do this anymore and i got offered to do a campaign with makeup forever which i've always wanted to do anyway because i i love the brand and i said and i said i'd love to do it and they're like we won an original song and i was like i don't want to do an original song cause if i do an original song people think i'm bringing an album and it's a single and marilyn i was like i'll do a cover so i met this guy called camper and he was in the studio and he was like yo man like i got some tracks and i was like no tracks don't play me anything i don't wanna i don't wanna do this no more he's like come on let me just play you something and i was like no no i'm good seriously please don't i was like auntie 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 like i don't want to i was trying to pretend that i was something different to who i was and he played me this beat and he was like i'm gonna go smoke i'll be back in five minutes and i was literally i was just sitting there and he played me this this track and i was like sitting there and the engineer was just like i'm in the behind the engineer and i just start typing on my laptop and the engineer's like you need to turn this off or and i was like no no it's all right keep it on and can i just jump in the booth real quick and i wrote this song called think about that which became the first single of the rose album and 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 good like ignoring all the bad stuff so that manifests into everything and then that's all i want to write about you know and so i just started to write the narratic queen and then i wrote someone's lady on the spot and then i wrote this and i wrote that and i kind of had this album i was like what do i do now uh 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 come a hobby of mine um can you imagine how insecure the seventh manager's gonna be or they're not you know the 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 ten years deep like 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 you know like i can't i know what it's like dating managers is like dating you know and i do believe that like such an important role doesn't always just fall into your lap and it's right and i honestly think that most artists will admit that they ain't happy with the management most people in the industry would admit that 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 well i actually think i'd enjoy this more if i didn't have this especially when you're making money off not doing much you know i'd rather be by myself for a second and it'd 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 uh two of the questions that i think a lot of people manage to get clarity on during terms of part yeah moments of turmoil the pandemic yeah exactly what was that to you that whole two years the pandemic was uh 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 gonna keep going to work and like you know just really take the weekend off like stop like 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 in the pandemic i let go of a lot of things that i held on to 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 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 yeah so there's gonna be people out there feeling the same human experience music reflects where you're at right well it should and in that time i think it was a very anxious at all everyone kind of wanted to like falsify this like we're good right we're okay like we're okay we're good we're gonna be fine and like you can feel that in the music it just feels a bit like too much and i think that what i think people are craving more than ever right now is just like real like and i also know what i'm good at and 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 huh joke took three years but we're here but i'll get there you know there's no right or wrong answers i don't believe that anything we do in life is wrong or right i just think we've got one and 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 my my in my songs but it it it feels like it's um has a place to 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 like 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 give you that gives you what they gave you and you realize that you have to find that for yourself like that's the the hardest part of grief for me that i'm experiencing right now um like i don't even it's like even me crying like this like 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 um 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 the like when you watch someone i don't know if you knew jamal you did his parents called me yesterday oh i love brenda um he was um i'd spoken to him um a few months uh a few weeks before he had passed yeah yeah yeah he was when i was 18 and i've this has been to the top of my twitter he was my my the evidence that i could make he's successful yeah so i would stalk him around skype when he was on skype and i'd try and get him to speak to me yeah it's it's crazy how much time he made for everyone i can't he was like so special like you know and when someone passes you always want to remind everybody of like the good that they were but he was like in another league of i can't explain it like when i was standing you know 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 you know 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 like jamal was someone that i spoke to when i didn't want to do this anymore when i didn't feel like you know being told that you're a great singer was enough like it often wasn't you know and i would phone him and he would just remind me of i mean i met when i was 17. 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 you know i just you felt his 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 it's funny because the biggest legacy that i think he however many businesses he started and things he invested in and platforms he created to to elevate everyone else it was the feeling that he gave people to me that was his legacy and like that's why i missed the most and i when i i sang at his um homecoming and everyone's like how did you do that i said because i was singing to him i was singing for him it wasn't a performance you know i know that he would have loved that i gotta just hit i just hear him going geez you know like come on are you wearing vegan shoes and that um 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 you know and i and i know that he has inspired me to demand more from myself and from other people um in my career you know 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 wherever i was supposed to receive from him for those things i have to find within myself so because no one will ever be that so sorry i'm so crying right now like i'm such an emotional person and i really live from feeling and i'm not afraid anymore to be vulnerable and i think that the first first line of change with anything through grief or anything like that is talking about how you feel and i think that i'm now in the next few months aware that i'm gonna 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 you know i love to work hard but i also like people around me to have a life i was when you you know when i was re-reading through the the process you went through with um with your miscarriage yeah you posted about it very soon after and you talked about it yeah and then you deleted the post right or you archived it or something 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 like a random caption and a picture of me just in and out you know so i just was like i'm not as sad as that but i'm not anywhere near say the view post before it yet so let me just archive it and just kind of go back to zero i just can't imagine as a you know i've had people who've sat here and talked to me about miscarriages and the experience especially the the attempt in a family to try and create life and struggling and yeah you know so seeing that so closely and the experience you shared and the way you shared it and even listening to you talk about going and having you know you had a suspicion that someone yeah yeah yeah and i had two scans in the same day and within the first scan and the second scan the baby had passed and it was it was such a i mean 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 um to have children and realistically like i still discovering that now i think that any woman can can say that the amount of women that are told that and then they have children you know and a lot of its mentors you know and where our bodies are at and 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 you know like your mind your body's so powerful and as i've gotten older and in my life as i've kind of tranquil like now to find tranquility in the chaos and you know like just my pain is so much better and i'm not on any medication anymore and you know 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 and so 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 you're literally just like and it's a secret but it's you and i'm such an open person and 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 like but it's also something that so many people have gone through so it wasn't like a per you know and i was just like what do i do and then when i bought these shows obviously i'd book them i think i'd put them before i even knew and then when i decided to do that first show i remember the day before i found out that baby had passed i was with a friend of mine and i was like how am i going to do the show and not tell everybody tell everyone you're pregnant yeah and announce it yeah and just say like because i was like so sick you know i was like people are gonna know you know it's uh so i just i just remember kind of landing in l.a and i was by myself you know i live in l.a by myself and i have friends and i don't have any family here but like i have my team um well i did have my team so sad until i fired everybody no it sounds so savage it's not it's so amicable and everything's fine um but no i mean i do have a lot of team you know a lot of them are in the uk still and i do have people here and my but like i have friends here and and i remember i got here and i was very sick and i was just like 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 and then i woke up one morning i was like oh i don't feel right i still had very intense nausea i just knew something something wasn't the same and i called uh a doctor because 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 and i and i went to the doctors and that dreadful silence when you first have a scan and they kind of don't say anything and i was like just tell me the truth what's going on and she said your baby's heartbeat is very low um and there's this like ring and and i was like what does that mean and she said it often means that the baby will have some sort of disability or deformity and i said okay and she said you know we can have you and take blood in a couple today and then in a couple of days and just to see if your your hormone levels are moving to see if the baby's still growing but the baby's heartbeat is very weak and i was like but it's still there and she's like yeah it's still there and that's when i went onto the street and i cried and the man came up to me and said you know if this is happening because you're supposed to talk about this you're supposed to help other people and instead of going to get bloods i got in my car and i said i'm gonna go and get a second opinion i didn't go and get the bloods ever and i phoned around some friends and no one was available and everyone's at work and i ended up being able to go and see another doctor very quickly and he only had about 10 minutes before he had to go into a surgery and so i went in very quickly and he did another scan and he said i'm really sorry there's no heartbeat like it's that was about within about three four hours of the first one and i remember going into the car park and getting in the car and one of the first people i spoke to was someone on my team you know and obviously you know they were supportive and understanding but one of the first things i was asked was what do you want to do about the show tomorrow and even though i understood i understood it you know i didn't at the time i don't think i realized that that actually really shifted the way i processed the experience you know 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 like i'm now so if you can hear my stomach i'm really hungry um it's like i need this no um i am i remember just going home and kind of not processing it and i had a friend come over and and then the next day i went straight into glam i did the sound check and i got on stage and i 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 and i posted it because i didn't have anyone there to break on i didn't have anyone to i don't flip and cry again i didn't have anyone to just fall apart on and just that's what i needed that's what i wanted you know and so i did the show the saddest point of that whole experience for me other than the the painful part of it which i'm it's 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 i couldn't support them in the way they needed me to because i didn't know it's such a painful 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 it's such a it's such a trip you know and obviously everyone's experience is different because you know the way the baby passes or it's all different for everybody and so i remember the hardest part for me was 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 loved turned up and came and you know were at the show it was when i got in the car after the show you know by myself and i got home and i opened my front door and i closed the door and i fell to my knees and 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 like i've always been super maternal i love children like it's just always been something i can't even explain people go like you know do you want to be a mom it's just something that i think that you're you gravitate towards or you kind of learn to gravitate to gravitate towards but i felt like i had been given everything i've ever wanted and then someone had gone but you can't have it but it was still there you know i was still and i would sing to it every night and you know and so when i got home that night and i laid there i've never felt so lonely in my life and the empath in me was like how so many people experience this like it's just and more than once like numerous times and i just remember laying there knowing that it was still there but it wasn't there you know and that went on for like because you know it was a long time it was over a week that i had to then go and do it a non-natural way um and it just you know it was just 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 and i stand by that now i knew as soon as i found out that the baby had gone i phoned my mum and i said i know that i'm not supposed to do this by myself like i know that i'm supposed to find someone that wants this as much as i do and it's such a honestly i it's a weird one to talk about because it's such a a head trip because it's you're grieving not so much even so much the the the baby or whatever whatever time you lose a baby you know i can't even imagine like women having stillborns and i just can't even fathom that and i it you're grieving the life that you imagined like that you prepared in your mind as well um it's almost a bit like you know when you're really it's this really stupid metaphor but when you're really excited for a holiday and then it gets cancelled 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've got that it was like that times a million and but i always will look for the silver lining in every any moment of pain and sadness um and 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 like not even everyone can do it you know and it's honestly brought me to some of the happiest moments that i've felt um because it's enabled it it's literally given it's opened the door for me to love myself deeper so i'm still processing the whole thing and i still have moments of intense sadness and grief but i also have moments of excitement knowing that i won't do it alone the other thing that i when i sent you that voice note i think it was around the time when you've done a big post about dave yeah and that was so you're really bringing out the big guns today yeah yeah he said we're really going to talk about some stuff well this is this is the perspective i was looking from from the outside in what you had been going through in that moment and you were being very open with the journey yeah and within all of these unimaginable instances you know things that played out in your life it was really as someone that's compelled to understand humans in grief and their emotions and psychology in the hope that it might help me yeah you know 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 yeah you got to experience the more it i got the happier i was because i knew the baby was healthy you'll never hear me complain if i'm pregnant and then the dave you did a post about dave who was your security guard and even that made me think about people that i've been with me for you know for a long time and been right by my side through the storm yeah before the storm and um and that's that's more grief that's more yeah more life lessons that we don't want to have to learn right about yeah i mean it's interesting because up until dave passed passing i've lost people that i know of you know but like real close people like he was one of the first and the hardest part about for me like losing someone like that and i speak broadly for anybody that's lost someone is when you've had experiences that no one else knows about so 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 seen the morning boss for years and years and 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 having to cancel the show or he was the person that came to visit me the first person that came to visit me when i would just have my operation when i was told i couldn't have kids like he was my guy like he was my big brother like when there was turbulence he held my hand for nine hours on the plane like when you've gone through those experiences but you know you can only grieve alone because no one else has experienced that those moments with you like that's that was what was the hardest thing for me is like no one else was a part of really our thing because it was just me and him like he's my security like he was just i would make him get on the roller coaster he was like no no just watch like come on i would make and he was so big and he would just sit next to me be like and i'd be like i know you like it and like there was a part of him that i know i only got to see you know it's an unusual experience to be pushed together with someone that closely for so long and to experience theme parks and traveling and airplanes and delays and highs and lows and we would every after every show one of my things that i like to do which i don't often do anymore now because it you know it was a hell thing was go for a walk after the show whether it was 2 a.m 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 like and usually no one would be out because it would be late so i could walk around like i'd be in the rain soaking wet and be like you've got to get you're going to get sick and i'll be like germs make you sick ryan does amazing you know so like 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 and there's this like push and pull of like where do i belong like i want to keep moving but i crave stillness but when i'm at home it's too still when i'm on you know when you're on tour it's too much moving and you crave stillness and then when you're still it's like i need to move you know 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 um so yeah i mean like one of the most important things for me now and has always been that because of my dad too is men need to talk like 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 like that they talk to and that they do the things that they enjoy and like i don't want my life to become your life or to feel like we have to be intertwined all the time like women have grown up with blogs and magazines and books and this that and the other and 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 you know or not it's not be respectful to yourself you know and i watched people react to dave who was this big six foot five tattooed bald guy going oh you're gonna beat me up before that even spoken to him am i going him beat you up like he'd catch a fly in a cup and put it outside you know it's crazy because the tears um between dave and jamal and even the baby like the things that those people gave me in my life are things that i know i have to find in myself like my anxiety comes a lot from my fear of being not being safe and dave gave me that and jamal always gave me self-belief which is like my biggest anxieties are self-belief and my fear and 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 um 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 um yeah the very special guys and dave was hard work hard work hilarious did took no [ __ ] and had my back 100 and i've not had anyone like that since you know in the photos you both look like jokers oh my god he was the biggest joker the biggest clown he would send me [ __ ] while i was sitting in the voice chair to try and make me laugh and like we just had all these jokes like we would and we lived in this house in australia together and it was whale season so we would watch wales like we would sit and have dinner and then we would sit when we bought binoculars and we would sit and watch like the sea and see if we could find whales and so it became this thing that every time we'd be in the middle of a conversation we were like wow and then we'd all run to the window so it became that thing for years that like if there was an awkward moment or one of us wanted to leave somewhere we would say well um that was like our code thing yeah random and then he'd come up with an excuse for him yeah yeah yeah yeah or we'd just laugh because we'd be like if someone said something stupid he'd be like wow like and it was just like 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 think that when you've experienced 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 or um and i think it's hard that when you've experienced that to want anything it's weird like i feel sometimes feel 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 um so yeah 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 which i hate i hate and i wish i could have protected him from himself like he protected me for 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 you know which is why i do try and 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 every day same with jamal and the baby all of them what do you like with letting people in having been through a lot of loss and these you know various situations you've been through in your life are you do you let people in easily because one would assume from some of your characteristics the openness the vulnerability that you had 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 you know um but i also think that's my nature like i'm a hostess i'm a very like a caregiver like i'm i like to cook and entertain and like care for people and look after people and i think there's a 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's not their love language but also i'm very guarded and i think that definitely in the last few years have i i've got way more closed in i wouldn't say that i have i have a fear of like like i'm funny about people 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 like childhood best friends my parents are definitely people that i've we've gone through our you know as you do with your parents um you know we carry so much of our parents good and bad you know and i think that all of us know that my dad 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 it and like triggering me and we need to talk about it you know and i'm grateful that i have people that are open to challenging me as much as i am challenging them um but you know 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 i even have one because some people don't even have one and they're the people that i cried for to because i think about how lonely they must be look at my life i'm so lucky and 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 would tell me that this is what my life was gonna look like you know i'm beyond grateful what about love then love love so funny because i wrote a book when i was what was i when i wrote bloody autobiography at 12. you know you got a book deal and you're like okay and when i look back at it now it's like there's a whole section of like i like ice cream and i'm just like who read this um and isn't she called nice to meet you it's like my career so far in like 2012 and it'd be like six months in but i remember obviously with regards to like me talking about relationships from the beginning and the impact that i 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 right 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 um which one was that well it wasn't even that i wanted to wanted it to be public but the person was public no it wasn't even that that was the one before the last one okay it was that i was frustrated that you have to almost fame is weird because even though people go people choose personally not to post or not to speak or not to be be seen you can't live a normal relationship if you don't aren't seen so even if i don't post a relationship these people will hide and hide in bushes and until they get a picture and then you don't want them to have the control of what they say is i know what you're talking about now you know what i'm saying so this is where you put 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 it was it was actually very interesting because i felt like i was experiencing what my exes had felt like being i was i was them and he was me right okay he was on a whole another level of fame and and going through a very personal time publicly and i was he was one of the biggest actors that he is yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and he's an incredible father and was going for a really personal traumatic time and it was just a lot of emotional collisions you know of like both of our lives at the same time and we got on really well but again that same thing is that when you're famous you can go for dinner on a date like how many dates have you been on where you would never see them again right 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 and then there was this comparison and it was just it was 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 asked 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 and 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 like 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 my frustration of like the way they worded all of it and i just was like no this isn't what it is like if you wanna i don't i hate that the press can control the narrative i hate that but i also get get it but it doesn't mean that you sometimes don't just go you know like and you did a post basically saying i want to control the narrative yeah exactly and it wasn't me going like we're going to get married we're going to do this it was just like this is what it is this is who it is like just and then they did piss off to some degree you know it was like okay and then all the like the picture they posted at 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 gonna use with both of us and like it was just terrible but there's that thin line of like [ __ ] everybody i'm gonna live the life i wanna live and i'm going to experience love like my mum says to me fallen 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 maybe it isn't who knows who knows um we might never know and i may like and i may never know yeah like 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 like do can we live together like would you take a bullet for me do i really want to meet your parents yeah it's a constant it's a lot yeah it's a lot and i think that i've been in relationships where in the process of me working out if it's what i want or not what i want the press are giving the narrative that it's exactly what i want and it is going to happen and it's this and it's that and i'm like we may never have been official or we were or we may have been engaged or we may have like just been mates the amount of times i've been in relationships with my friends that i've just gone to dinner with you know i've like the amount of times that people have set up look like i've been pregnant little do they know obviously now it doesn't happen and i think if the press did say that now i think that i would probably feel confident to say something because i see them do it to so many women without knowing what they're internally going through i constantly write the line between not giving a [ __ ] and wanting to protect it to every little part of me because i would be lying if i didn't say that what other people think or say or constantly believe doesn't bother me 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 yeah 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 yeah i'm acting right now um i really want to do stand up i mean me sitting at crime for the last three hours isn't giving that people that impression but knock knock um i yeah i definitely want to do acting at some point like the west end stuff i mean i yeah i mean right now i'm in the process of like trying to create a one-woman show right um which is what jamar was helping me with um which is a combination of the things that i love the most which is therapy and talking and honesty and emotions and standing in the middle of them and feeling the storm and 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 you know and combining those three things and don't know what it looks like have an idea but you know life does this yeah um and preparing my body to try again to be a parent you know at some point in the next few in the next few years for sure thank you thank you are you gonna write notes about me in your book now no actually this is part of a tradition we have here where the the last guest who you'll never know who they are writes a question for the next guest and then that just keeps going so 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 so 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 i don't need help i don't need support person that's [ __ ] like i need 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 jesse thank you thank you for the conversation you know as i said you before we started recording there was a reason why i wanted to speak to you and it's for all the reasons that you know i've discovered today you've been through so much but on the other side of that is tremendous wisdom and 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 yeah what happens to the audience when you start talking about that yeah you see the resonance right i'm grateful to as i said the biggest thing for me is 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 yeah and the other tremendous part of my admiration too comes from this 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 as opposed to english people say you know trust your gut yeah literally it's your second brain trust your gut you know like and don't just trust your instincts act on them like if something doesn't feel right it's because it's not and then the other part the third part is your talent which is hey yeah do you like that i was thinking more the whitney thing out in china whitney isn't she the best but but you are just like i know that i'm blowing smoke up your ass but you are different like when i listen to him say i don't so i'll be honest with you i don't listen to loads of um music in your when i would say in your genre but you're not really in one genre but you know what you mean but you and um maybe one other artist can get me like and that's i think a credit to your talent and also what what's behind the music you can feel it with certain people and when i was doing the research for this episode i got like i'm like because i'd get two hours into listening to one of you listening to the rose album or something else like [ __ ] i need to read and then i'd play another song and get sucked back into it emotionally and it was taking me to places and 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 and so thank you wherever you're at in your life yeah you've got that thank you you know no one can ever take that you've got it yeah and few have so thank you for that gift and thank you for sharing all of it thank you appreciate that so much i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast we are all looking for ways to live a little bit more sustainably and to make more conscious choices in our day-to-day routines so when a brand like my energy who i've spoken about before offered to sponsor this podcast i felt like and i knew deep down inside that i had to help them share their mission to create an even greener world it feels like there's not much more fulfilling than that and their products provide an easy and cost effective way to make a sustainable switch in your life and they've got some existing new products coming out that i can't wait to use myself and i'll let you know as i use those products how i get on so if you're a my energy customer at the moment let me know your favorite products down below in the comments section and if you haven't checked them out yet go to myenergy.com and find out a lot more about who they are and what they're doing if you're one of those people that wants to make a sustainable switch myenergy.com is the place for you [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Diary Of A CEO

Views: 1,238,431

Keywords: the diary of a CEO podcast, jessie j, jessie j bang bang, jessie j interview 2022, jessie j interview, podcast english, the diary of ceo jessie j, jessie j podcast, what happened to jessie j, jessie j miscarried, jessie j miscarried baby, jessie j live, jessie j price tag, jessie j my heart will go on, jessie j songs, jessie j nobodys perfect, what happened to jessie j career, Jessie J: I Quit Music, Deleted An Album, Then Changed My Mind, pop music

Id: -eOSj-gsAf8

Length: 109min 26sec (6566 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2022