Estelle appears in the August issue of Zest magazine (on sale 12th July).
She frankly discusses her break-up with her boyfriend, how her new album is her 'overcoming album' and why she's loving life as a single girl.
My break up taught me – for the first time in my life – that it’s OK to let other people see I’m hurting. I haven’t been that person in the past, but now I’ve learned that putting all of that negativity out there is the only way to move on from it. With All of Me (her new album), when it sounds like I’m smiling, I am – and when it sounds like I’m having the worst day of my life, I am. There’s absolutely no shame in that, it’s just being human.
I wrote and recorded the album when I was still with my ex, so the songs are based on what I was going through at the end of our relationship. It was about turning a negative into a positive. But being open about how I felt in front of producers and engineers, breaking down in the middle of a session and learning not to care what people thought was a huge challenge.
It was a shock to everyone when my ex and I split up. But I’m no good at pretending things are good when they’re not. When I’m in a relationship, I’m all the way in, but this time I knew in my heart that I was ‘maybe-ing’. I stayed with him because of what other people thought, but in the end I stopped caring. I live in new York now, but coming back to London for three weeks and being among my family, who love the hell out of me, made me realise I’m not alone.
I remembered who I really am, and that I was better than the relationship I was in. I returned to the US and, while filming a music video, I had an epiphany. There, I was surrounded by a team of men who had no clue who I was, but were treating me better than I was being treated at home. In that moment, I knew my relationship was over. We broke up the next day.
