Jessie Ware says being a working mother 'nearly broke me' after becoming 'preoccupied with showing everyone you could have it all'

Jessie Ware has admitted that being a working mother to three young children 'nearly broke' her because she was 'preoccupied with showing everyone you could have it all'. 

The singer, 41, who has a daughter aged nine and two sons aged seven and four with her personal trainer husband Sam Burrows, explained how she has worked hard to 'understand what my limits are' after an 'exhausting' time trying to prove herself.

The Sweet Talk hitmaker recalled the early days of her music career when she went to Glastonbury Festival while eight months pregnant with her first child because she didn't want to be 'written off' for becoming a mother. 

Speaking in an interview with this week's Grazia magazine, Jessie said: '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 p***ing rain.

'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.' 

The musician revealed the family have since enlisted the help of a nanny to assist when she's on tour and said 'I don't try to pretend that I'm doing it all'. 

Jessie, who has been married to Sam, her school sweetheart, since 2014, explained that 'life feels really good' now she has mastered the balancing act of being a working mum.

The podcaster recently told how she is 'reclaiming her sexual identity' during her 'frenzied forties' now her three children are at school and she is able to spend more time looking after her own 'wants and needs'.

Jessie said in an interview with The Times in April: 'You're no longer up in the night. You're not doing nappies. They are more independent and so maybe your relationship with your partner transitions from saying, 'Are you doing that feed?' 

'It is that reclaiming of your sexual identity, needs, wants. Also, you start to understand how you view your body again, which has been a vessel and a tool. 

'It's a really interesting time, your forties, because you are near midlife. You are nearing a time when you think about dying, but this is a sweet spot, where you want to cram in as much fun as possible. It's a frenzied time.'

The musician has previously spoken about her struggle to balance motherhood with her career and said 'nobody wanted to hear about it' after she gave birth to her first child. 

In a candid interview with the British edition of Rolling Stone magazine in 2023, she explained: 'I struggled with that when I had my first daughter, and I wrote about that in the music, and nobody really wanted to hear about it. 

'There's a song on Glasshouse, Thinking About You, I almost can't listen to it because it's about me working too much, my daughter, and me not being there. I think she was probably about a year [old], and she knows it's about her.

'It's quite a celebratory chorus. But I just want to cry when I hear it, because I feel so wretched. It's just a different time. I was in a bad place. I was trying to please everybody, and trying to do everything.

'I think I was not allowing my ideas to be heard loud enough. I think being a parent changed things. I've always been involved in my music, but I think I became a bit more no-nonsense.

'I managed to find a way that I could work that really suited me, that was really focused. 

'And actually, even though I've got loads more that I'm doing now, with the podcast, doing books or making music, it weirdly feels far more balanced now. I'm just happier, I think.'

Revealing how she found a balance, she continued: 'My priority is my family, my work is obviously very, very important.

'But and that's why when we went through the diary, I kind of took a breath and I was like, "I'm not going to be at many pickups and drop-offs at school" and I feel really guilty about that. But then also, you only put out a record every few years.'