Social media trolls made me make drastic decision & here’s what I think about Brits non-binary category says Jess Glynne
SHE has toured with the Spice Girls, written hits for Little Mix and Paloma Faith and scored more No1 singles than Adele and Taylor Swift combined.
Yet although she is massively successful, British superstar Jess Glynne has felt the wrath of trolls on social media so badly that she deleted her accounts for more than a year.
Now she has returned with new single What Do You Do? and is back online, this time with a far healthier relationship with social media.
In an exclusive chat, she said: “I’m a human being and you can’t walk around with a filter on your mouth.
“I’m a real, honest, genuine person, in a good way. I always mean well and I only want to present love and good vibes.
“No one’s perfect out here and it’s difficult because the attack on socials is hard. People can’t do anything right any more. It’s mad.
“Accountability is important and I’ll always hold my hands up when I make a mistake or say the wrong thing.
“I definitely can see the damage and I think it’s a really scary place, social media.”
Jess, 33, shot to fame in 2014 with hit songs including My Love with Route 94 and her Clean Bandit collaboration Rather Be, which were the first of her seven No1 singles.
Since then she has released two albums that topped the charts, won a Grammy and toured the world.
‘Embrace you. Be you’
A break from music and social media over lockdown made her re-evaluate her mindset and lead to her overhauling her career by signing new management and record deals.
She said: “My relationship with social media is very healthy at the moment.
“I’ve found a really good balance and I think I’m learning to enjoy it because I’m doing it the way I want to do it.
“It’s easy to get lost in those things, to doubt yourself and see what people are doing.
“We all do it and it’s like, what’s the point in getting too down on yourself?
“Just switch it off and move on.”
Her new lease of life also prompted her to strip off for striking photos to promote What Do You Do?, which will feature on her as-yet unannounced third album, expected to be released next year.
She said of the photoshoot: “For a long time I was suppressed in being a woman and being sexy and embracing my body.
“I wasn’t allowed to feel that way or do those things because I was controlled, in a way.
“I feel like I’ve got this team now who are like, ‘Embrace you. Be you.’
“It’s not me trying to be like, ‘Look at my t**s’. That’s not why we do it.
“It’s more about embracing skin and being a woman and being able to stand and feel strong and empowered. That’s where I’m at.
“It’s been a crazy few years and I’m at a place right now where I can say I’m self secure.
“It’s still a journey and I’m still working on myself, I think we’re forever working on ourselves.
“But I definitely feel like I’m in a really good place in how I feel about me and where I’m at emotionally and physically.
“It’s important to display that with my music because that’s kind of the message in a lot of my songs to come. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster.”
Unfortunately though, she has conceded that the industry is still tough for women, far more so than it is for male stars.
That was the debate last month when Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage headline slots were all occupied by male artists.
Reflecting on the controversy around the line-up, she said: “It’s hard out here. I’ll be real, it’s actually really mad.
“I find it difficult, I’m being honest.
“There’s so many incredible women and so many successful women that deserve that platform.
“That’s one of my dreams to headline Glastonbury, of course, and I don’t think it’s impossible.
“I don’t think anything is impossible in life.
“But I do think that the industry makes it hard for us as women, for sure.
“There’s limited opportunity sometimes.”
That has also been the case at the Brit Awards in recent years, after they axed the Best Male and Best Female gongs in favour of a Best Artist award.
The aim was to take gender out of the conversation and include people who don’t identify as either male or female, such as non-binary pop star Sam Smith, 31.
However, it has led to criticisms that it has marginalised female artists, with all five nominees in the category last February being male.
On the lack of women nominated, she said: “That is sad. I don’t know how they base it. It’s a shame.
“It’s really sad and it shouldn’t be that way. Something’s got to change.”
Jess has been nominated for nine Brits, including twice in the Best Female category before it was axed, but now faces an even tougher challenge to win one of the sought-after awards.
Addressing the thorny issue, she said she isn’t complaining.
She mused: “I appreciate exactly how it is, because of the way things evolve in the world.
“It’s important to be able to recognise everyone and for everyone to have a voice and be seen as they wish to be seen.
“Everyone is entitled to be who they want to be.
“For me, all I’ll say is that I’m very proud to be the woman that I am.
“At the end of the day, they are just awards shows.
“I think it’s important to be recognised and we will, and we do get recognised.
“Awards shows are weird in the way that they categorise things and how artists are chosen. I never really understand it.
“But I don’t believe that’s the be-all and end-all of a moment as an artist.
“I do think it’s important to embrace who we are.”
Clearly feeling refreshed, inspired and most importantly of all, a lot happier, Jess is now laser-focused on taking her career to the next level with the help of one of the industry’s biggest stars.
She is now being managed by Roc Nation, headed up by Jay-Z, and believes they have been game-changing in lining up the next stage of her career.
Jess explained: “I feel very appreciative of where I’m at and who I’ve got around me because everyone I do have around me is a believer in anything is possible.
“My management company look after one of the biggest female artists, my manager looks after Rihanna, and look what she’s achieved.
“It’s very inspiring to be around people who are like, ‘Yeah, you can do that’.
“There’s a lot of people that will say yes and a lot who will say, ‘Yeah, you can do . . . ’.
“But people who have actually got it in them to actually do it, is another thing.”
Quizzed on whether she will be breaking America, she added: “Not only in the US. I think it’s about doing the damn thing.
“It’s not all about one place, everyone’s important to me.”
With her talent, the world is her oyster.