Jessie Ware: I didn’t get maternity leave after birth of my daughter
The singer is back with her third album, Glasshouse.
Jessie Ware has said she did not get maternity leave after giving birth to her daughter because she is “self-employed”.
The British singer-songwriter, 33, welcomed her first child, a daughter, in September last year with husband Sam Burrows, and has told how she was working again within a few days.
Ware told The Guardian: “I didn’t get a maternity leave!
The musician has just released her third album Glasshouse – the follow-up to her 2014 record Tough Love – and was responding to comments that the new effort marked her return from maternity leave.
Ware also spoke of a recent gig she performed at in Paris, after which she was left in tears due to juggling parenthood with her music career.
She said: “I felt like maybe this whole attempt at trying to be a superwoman was coming crashing down at the last hurdle.”
The star, whose debut album Devotion was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2012, said: “I think I’ve not been able to enjoy myself onstage because I’m a control freak, anxious and thinking about 6,000 things at once.”
She said she has been undergoing hypnotherapy, because she feels like she is “being quite anxious on stage”.
“I don’t know whether it’s losing a bit of confidence from being away for a while, or whether it’s always been there and I’ve never really addressed it.”
In a post shared on Friday, Ware wrote on Instagram that the “past couple of years have been eye opening and intense” for her and that the last year has been the “most challenging year of my life”.
She wrote: “Wild highs and nerve-wracking lows. I started a record, decided to become a mother, and then kind of restarted the record.
“This became Glasshouse. It’s been the most challenging year of my life but today all that hard work seems incredibly worthwhile and something to be proud of.”
