Content warning: This interview contains references to baby loss and miscarriage.
Jessie J is multitasking motherhood, promo and laundry like a woman who’s cracked the code to modern chaos. In the past 24 hours, she’s redesigned her toddler’s playroom, survived a full day of back-to-back interviews, picked up the weekly food shop and wrestled a mountain of baby clothes into the wash – all without so much as smudging her signature red lipstick.
Her one-year-old son, Sky, is in Denmark with his dad, Danish-Israeli basketball player Chanan Colman. It’s the briefest exhale before her first single in four years, No Secrets, drops today – a slick, soul-baring track that marks not just a music comeback but something far more seismic.
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But it hasn't always been like this - back in 2021 Jessie suffered a miscarriage that almost broke her, performing six days of live shows in LA at the same time. Her latest song is inspired by that time and how the aftermath changed her.
Firstly though, she's talking glam. ‘I never thought I'd see the day where I’d do a full day of promo with no eye makeup on,’ she laughs, pulling up a kitchen chair with the energy of someone powered by coffee and sheer will. ‘I’ve literally just got foundation, eyebrows, and lips – that’s it. I can’t be bothered.
‘This doesn’t feel like a comeback,’ she muses. ‘It feels like a celebration of everything I’ve done up to this point. I don’t feel like I’ve had a hiatus from success. I’ve just had a hiatus from putting out an album in the UK and worldwide. People kept saying to me today, “You know you’re legendary?” And I’m like… I don’t feel that way.’
She doesn’t say it with false modesty – more like someone still learning how to live inside their own legacy.
If you were around in the early 2010s, you didn’t hear Jessie J, real name Jessica Cornish, so much as feel her – usually through the soles of your feet or the back of your skull, depending on how loudly Domino was playing at your local Topshop.
Do It Like a Dude was her swaggering, bisexual, take-no-prisoners debut. Price Tag made her an overnight international star - and bought her her first house. And by the time Bang Bang dropped with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, she was pop’s resident power belter, known for making every note sound like it had something to prove.
‘Bang Bang still haunts me because I always have to sing it, and it’s so high,’ she interludes. ‘As much as it’s wonderful to have that success, it’s also complicated. I don’t want it to be misconstrued that I dislike the song or the experience – it’s been one of the most joyful times of my career - but with big hits, you always feel like you’re fighting them.’
Alongside No Secrets, Jessie will drop Living My Best Life on 16th May – a feelgood anthem produced by hitmaker Ryan Tedder.
‘I think it’s my best work,’ she says. ‘It’s been a long journey with lots of people in and out, but me being the main thread. I wrote all of it. It really represents the layered human. We’re all happy, sad, grieving, joyful. We all want a dance. We all want to cry. I feel so lucky to hold people’s hands through moments they’re struggling in.’
‘I lost my baby, but the show must go on’ - the opening line from No Secrets cuts straight to the heart of it all. Jessie is not here to pretend – not about fame, not about motherhood and certainly not about pain.
‘I’d just had the miscarriage when I started writing this song in the studio,’ she says, reflecting on the devastating loss she experienced in 2021 – just a day after announcing her pregnancy on Instagram. She was 10 weeks along, single, and had made the decision to try to have a baby on her own.
That morning, she shared the news with the world in an Instagram post which went viral. That same night, she walked on stage.
‘When I found out the baby had no heartbeat – I’m sure I can speak for all women, even if they have people around them - it’s such a lonely feeling,’ she says. ‘ I’ve never felt more alone.
‘For those six days, when I knew the baby had gone but it was still inside me… it was the saddest, loneliest time. It’s letting go of something you’ve dreamt of that now isn’t going to happen. My sister came out to LA to be with me.
‘I’d booked this acoustic residency, six back-to-back shows and I still wanted to do the show. Do I regret it? No. Did I enjoy it? I don’t know.
‘I realised there’s an element to this life that makes you feel not quite human. That’s a whole play on words in No Secrets: 'I chose the spotlight'.
That instinct – to push through, to share – runs deep. ‘I didn’t have anyone to spar with or process it with. I just knew I had to keep going.’
Now, performing No Secrets feels like a balm. ‘I kind of feel like I’m giving myself a hug every time I sing it.’
Diagnosed with adenomyosis, which has been linked to infertility, Jessie - who has a history of health challenges, including a heart condition diagnosed at age eight, a minor stroke at 18, and a brief period of deafness - was told her chances of conceiving naturally were slim.
Weeks later, she met her now boyfriend Colman and got pregnant within seven months of dating.
'It was such a quick turnaround - we just fell completely in love.’ She pauses, then smiles. ‘Yay for love, right? We all deserve it.’
In May 2023, Jessie gave birth to her son and announced it via an Instagram video, scored by a ballad she’d written, sung while he lay asleep beside her.
When she first thought of the name Sky, it just clicked. ‘I remember, I was about six or seven weeks pregnant,’ she says. ‘I was so emotional. My boyfriend and I went for dinner, and I just sobbed. And I was like, “He has to be called Sky.”’ In Danish, it means “cloud”. Sky is my silver lining to every cloud.’
Motherhood has recalibrated everything. 'I don't care about the fame and the faff,’ she says. ‘I just want to be present.’
The pregnancy itself was far from straightforward. After a negative test at Heathrow, she assumed she had COVID. A 14-hour flight to Brazil later, another test. Pregnant.
Having lost a previous pregnancy, she spent the early months with quiet dread. ‘Once you lose a baby, and you’ve been told it’s not going to be easy to carry, I just assumed I was going to lose him too,’ she admits. ‘I had so many scans at the beginning. I spent an absurd amount of money on them.’
She was diligent, obsessive. ‘I was so strict. I didn’t leave the house and even down to products - I just wanted it to go right.
‘I didn’t have eyebrows. I dye them every three days - I’m quite naturally blonde. My hair is really thick and wavy, too, so this,' she says, pointing to her jet-black hair, 'is all basically a lie!
‘I’ll never forget that – being so strict. I didn’t have any eyebrows, my hair was terrible, my skin was horrible.’
When it came time to give birth, Jessie chose a C-section while Colman captured it all on camera with a tripod. ‘It was calm. No blood. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,’ she says. ‘I wish I could put it on the internet, but I know it’s probably not for everyone.’
She knows not every woman gets this moment. ‘I get so heartbroken that not all women get to experience this,’ she says, eyes welling up. ‘I have friends who haven’t had that dream happen for them. Sorry, I get so emotional.'
A product of the BRIT School - the South London comprehensive/pop breeding ground of Adele, FKA Twigs, Amy Winehouse and RAYE (who quit after two years due to feeling ‘confined’) - she was one of the few who blew up worldwide overnight. Watching RAYE dominate the BRITs last year - seven nominations, six wins, and a long-overdue industry embrace - she felt something snap into focus.
‘I saw it happening to her and it reminded me of 2010,” says Jessie. ‘Honestly, it’s even bigger for her. But that same feeling, that whirlwind, I recognised it.’
So she did something quietly lovely: she messaged RAYE offering her support. ‘I said, if you ever want advice or just a chat, I’m here. I get so protective, really protective of artists, because I know what that feels like – to be young and swept up in something massive. It’s amazing, but it’s a lot.
‘I think there’s an understanding and a respect when you communicate with other artists – whether it’s on text, in person, or DMs – there’s a connection you have with other people who do this job that just get it. That’s really lovely, especially with women. And I have a lot of those kinds of connections that I wouldn’t say are friendships, but they’re respectful and very open. Like, they know they can come into my world and talk to me, and I can talk to them. But obviously, a lot of the time, we’re all just travelling so much.’
It’s this sense of understanding that makes her recent shift away from the structure of major labels even more significant. Her 2023 split from Republic Records was a conscious decision to pursue something more authentic.
‘It was amicable,' she says. 'I think I’ve realised I like things to be personable. I’m not a chain restaurant. I’m home-cooked! Do you know what I’m saying?’ I had major success, but I also got into a lot of debt. I just think, for who I am – I wake up at 5am, I cook, I do housework, I do my own socials - I’m very micromanaging and I’m quite controlling. I’m like a Duracell Bunny.’
Now, after years of living in Los Angeles, Jessie has returned to the UK, where she’s raising her son and embracing a different kind of rhythm. ‘The first year of my son’s life, I was super hands-on,’ she says. ‘Now it’s just us – me and my boyfriend – with help from my mum and his, who lives in Denmark.’
And her homecoming has been grounding. ‘I missed the honesty, the sarcasm,’ she grins. ‘It’s so different here. I’m still adjusting but I'm ready – personally, mentally, energetically – to come back and face the music. Literally.’
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