With parenthood, podcast success and a tour starting soon,
Jessie Ware is in the thick of it. Hattie Crisell meets her
Jessie Ware is juggling. The singer-songwriter is promoting a new album, but she also has three young children and a fairly demanding podcast to look after. She’s just finished Grazia’s photo shoot and now she’s sitting cross-legged in front of me in her black jumpsuit, holding both a cup of tea and a Diet Coke. ‘What I really want is a proper Coke, but I’m worried I’ll crash on the sugar.’
Ware looks radiant yet feels, she says, ‘pretty exhausted’. Her daughter is nine and her sons are seven and four. ‘I can’t complain because I’m living, I’m working, I’m doing the job that I love doing,’ she says. ‘My kids are in that bicker era and it’s fucking annoying, but life feels really good – I’m around and, if I’m not, I’ve got a nanny. I don’t try to pretend that I’m doing it all.’
She is doing a lot, however. ‘Yeah, but I think everyone’s doing a lot. I did forget that the carpet guy was coming today and I’d forgotten to tell my husband. The guy came from Woking and I had four missed calls – so, yeah, I definitely dropped the ball.’
Ware turned 41 in October. ‘I really enjoy my forties,’ she says. ‘I feel I know myself better.’ When you move through life like a whirlwind – as so many of us in our forties do – there will be dropped balls along the way, and she’s learned to allow that. When she was younger, she says, ‘I was preoccupied with showing everyone that you could have it all. It was silly, but when I had my first kid, I went to Glastonbury eight months pregnant, in the pissing rain.’
Was it that she didn’t want to be ‘written off’ for becoming a mother? ‘Exactly. And it was exhausting and really precarious, because I was so scared of slipping on the mud. Then I tried to be like, “Yeah, you can travel with a baby and you can do writing sessions!” I think it nearly broke me. Now, although I actually have more strings to my bow, I also understand what my limits are.’
PHOTOGRAPHS Tung Walsh
STYLING Donna Wallace
Published on 9th June 2026
Suit, £1,900, shirt, £225, tie, £150, all Edward Sexton; earrings, £89, Pandora
Hair: Patrick Wilson at The Wall Group using Sam McKnight. Make-up: Francesa Brazzo at The Wall Group using Armani Beauty. Nails: Emma Welsh at SB Collective. Set Designer: Kash Odedra. Tailor: Kayd McAdam Freud at Karen Avenall. Shoot Producers: Anna Dewhurst,
Gabriela Velasco. Photographer’s Assistants: Oliver Webb, Celia Croft. Set Designer’s Assistant: India Hogan. Fashion Assistant: Amber Backhouse, Mansa Hayer.
Editor-in-chief: HATTIE BRETT. creative director: carolyn roberts.
Deputy editor: hanna woodside. Style Director: Molly HayloR
‘SOMETIMES YOU FORGET HOW HOT YOU CAN FEEL’
This stage of life has given rise to her sixth album, Superbloom, which came out in April. It has her trademark disco flavour, but also a lot of sweetness and reflection, with her children’s voices in the mix and songs about love and motherhood.
She feels in a good spot right now – ‘without sounding smug,’ she adds. ‘I’m proud of the business that I’ve accidentally grown with my podcast and I’m proud of the artist that I’m becoming and I’m fucking proud of my relationship and my kids. It doesn’t come without absolute faults and hard times as well – but I was ready to celebrate that a little bit, even if it doesn’t feel like the sexiest of conversations.’
Hang on, though – this album does have very sexy moments. You’ll likely have seen the video for Ride (sample lyric: ‘I need a stallion who can go all night’), in which Ware cavorts with a cowboy played by James Norton. If you haven’t, you should look it up immediately.
‘I didn’t go out there trying to make a soft porn video!’ she says. ‘But the amount of texts I got about it… A lot of my friends, we’re in the same stage where we’ve got young children. Sometimes you forget how hot you can feel and be made to feel. I think that was the thing. It gives people permission to be sexy.’
For me, aged 43, it’s been wonderful to see women of my generation release smouldering music that addresses what’s on our minds as we enter midlife. The current crop includes Lily Allen (41), Robyn (who has released Sexistential aged 46) and Sophie Ellis Bextor (47, with an album called Perimenopop). Ware, who wore a sheer green Agro Studio dress to her album launch, is the perfect example. ‘I felt fierce,’ she says.
Left: Blouse, price on request, Dior; ring, £99, and earrings, £69, both Pandora
Right: Dress, price on request, and shoes, £960, both Dior; necklace, £99, ring, £89, bracelet, £69, and earrings, £69, all Pandora
She’s come a long way since her first album, Devotion, came out in 2012. ‘And I’ve survived,’ she says. ‘I keep on beating the boss, if you think of it like a computer game.’ Yet she doesn’t find being in the music business at 41 particularly easier than it was at 27. ‘I think it gets harder, I’m not going to lie. Even though I’m probably the most successful [I’ve been], you do wonder when your expiry date is.’
So long as her music has fans, she knows she’ll be OK. ‘As long as somebody wants to buy a ticket to see me, I’ll sing. I do think there are more expectations of women on what kind of show they’re going to put out, and how much they have to razzle-dazzle you, compared to a bloke.’
From October, Ware will tour North America and Europe – including a night at London’s O2 – and she will absolutely razzle-dazzle. It’s one area where she’s really grown in confidence. ‘Touring my first or second record, I was so terrified and slightly apologetic on stage. Now I’ve got this incredible fanbase that has been there from the start, and they’ve indulged my musical theatre side and I feel like maybe I’m now entitled to be that pop star.’
She has planned the dates to limit how long she will be apart from her children and to allow her to be free for half term. She’s also conscious of being a good partner to her husband Sam Burrows, who is retraining as an osteopath. ‘The world doesn’t revolve around me,’ she says. ‘He’s got really important exams.’ Still, her breaks from domestic life will be a treat. ‘I get looked after. I have a tour manager who asks me what I want for dinner every night – it’s fucking amazing,’ she says.
She and Burrows met at school and married in 2014. It is tradition that when she releases an album, she films his first listen to it. ‘Sam doesn’t have an agenda in the music biz,’ she says fondly. ‘He definitely gives me honest opinions and I like that he doesn’t worship me, and that he doesn’t know what’s going on half the time.’ He’s a personal trainer – so does he train Ware? She laughs. ‘Fuck, no! I don’t listen to him and I misbehave and question everything.’
Dress, £1,440, Issey Miyake; earrings, £69, Pandora
In between the music promo, Ware is still recording Table Manners, the beloved podcast she’s hosted with her mother, Lennie Ware, since 2017. For every episode, one of them cooks a meal for their guest – which she enjoys, but it’s no joke during weeks when they record three. ‘It’s like hosting three dinner parties.’
It must be very bonding to make the show with her mother, I say, and she hesitates. ‘I don’t know if it’s bonding. Sometimes we need a break from each other, or she needs to be allowed to be just my mum and I need to be her daughter.’ Do they start communicating more like colleagues? She laughs. ‘I think, in my head, I’m the CEO – and she thinks she’s the CEO too.’
Nevertheless, it’s given them unbelievable shared memories – like interviewing Cher (in Paris – ‘Mum took chicken soup on the Eurostar’) or Chaka Khan (‘They were having such a love-in’).
When they started the podcast, Ware saw it as very different to her music and a separate version of herself. ‘But when it became popular, I realised that people were enjoying how normal I could be,’ she says. ‘That was really great for my confidence as an artist, to be like, oh, OK, I don’t need to try and be mysterious.’
Still, she likes her life of wearing many hats. ‘The Jessie Ware that goes on stage is theatrical, she’s fabulous and she’s not how I am in my daily life. It’s like doing Stars In Their Eyes,’ she concludes. Except, of course, that it’s Ware who is the star.
The Superbloom Tour comes to the UK and Ireland 28 Nov; visit jessieware.com for tickets
GUGU MBATHA-RAW
NOW I HAVE MORE
STRINGS TO MY BOW,
BUT I ALSO UNDERSTAND WHAT MY LIMITS ARE
JESSIE WARE
IT’S VERY EASY TO GET WORN DOWN BY LIFE AND I FEEL GRATEFUL THAT I STILL FEEL REALLY OPTIMISTIC
Dress, £1,995, bra, £275, and briefs, £125, all Simone Rocha;
ring, £89, bracelet, £69, and earrings, £69, all Pandora
AS LONG AS SOMEBODY
WANTS TO BUY A TICKET
TO SEE ME, I’LL SING
JESSIE WARE
‘SOMETIMES YOU FORGET HOW HOT YOU CAN FEEL’