Jessie J shares inspiring message for others experiencing miscarriage: 'You are allowed to be broken'
Jessie J is opening up even further after revealing last month that she suffered a miscarriage just hours before she was set to appear on stage in Los Angeles.
“I posted about losing my baby just hours after I was told,” she captioned a post on Thursday morning, alongside a video of her singing in front of an audience. “I reacted in work mode. It’s safe to say I sometimes pour more energy into creating an unhealthy process of my own pain in front of a camera, than I do acknowledging it behind one in real time. ‘The show must go on’ mentality reacted before the human in me did.”
“I must justify to the audience for my show tomorrow, and explain to the world why I might be a little off, was my first thought,” she continued. “I must turn this into an inspirational, I know I will be ok, strong moment, because that’s who I am right? Truth is, I just needed to fucking cry and fall into someone’s arms and sob. But at the time I was alone. I hadn’t processed anything. Nor did I have any idea what I was about to go through not just emotionally but physically after this show.”
The singer added that she now understands why there’s such a need for women to speak “openly” about the emotional impacts of miscarriage.
“I have learnt now that what people know of miscarriage to be (including myself before this past 2 weeks) unless you have personally experienced it,” she said. “What people think it is, is in fact not a true reflection of what it really is at all. How can people support when they don’t know?”
“I have never experienced physical pain and trauma or felt loneliness like it,” she continued. “This has changed me forever. In the most, heartbreaking, but beautiful way. It’s put life into perspective in a way nothing else ever has.”
“I am so sorry if you have ever been through it alone or not, or are going through it right now at any stage of pregnancy,” she concluded. “Losing your baby is one of the worst feelings in the world. I ache for you. If I could I would bring you food, hold you through the physical pain, I know that’s needed more than a ‘stay strong’ text right now.”
“I guess I’m here to say to anyone who may not have been told this, you are allowed to be broken. You are allowed to cry. Allowed to be weak. Allowed to be exhausted from the pain and the bleeding and the grief that barely has space to exist. You are allowed to do this however YOU need to. Sometimes life just calls us to be human. We know there will be sunshine, but we can’t avoid the rain.”
The “Price Tag” singer originally had shared the news in November, posting a photo of herself holding a pregnancy test. Thought the post appears to have now been taken down, she had noted in its caption: “Yesterday morning I was laughing with a friend saying ‘seriously though how am I going to get through my gig in LA tomorrow night without telling the whole audience I am pregnant.' By yesterday afternoon I was dreading the thought of getting through the gig without breaking down.”
Jessie, who split from her ex-boyfriend Channing Tatum last year, explained that she’d decided to have a baby on her own, because it’s all she ever wanted and “life is short.”
“To get pregnant was a miracle in itself and an experience I will never forget and I know I will have again,” she wrote in the now-removed post. “I'm still in shock, the sadness is overwhelming. But I know I am strong, and I know I will be OK. I also know millions of women all over the world have felt this pain and way worse. I feel connected to those of you I know and those of you I don’t. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world.”
“So I will see you tonight LA,” she concluded. “I may crack less jokes but my heart will be in the room.”
The singer has spoken openly in the past about longing to be a mother. Her song, “Four Letter Word,” in fact, chronicled her dreams of becoming a parent.
Jessie has spoken before about wanting to be a mother, even writing the track “Four Letter Word” about her parenthood aspirations. In 2018, she spoke onstage about being told she would not be able to carry a biological child, which inspired the song about motherhood.
“So four years ago, I was told that I couldn't have children, and it's OK, I'm going to have children, trust me,” she told an audience during a concert at Royal Albert Hall in London in 2018. “When the doctor told me, my reaction was, 'Oh hell nooooooo.’ I wanted to write this song for myself in my moment of pain and of sadness. But, also to give myself joy and give other people something that they can listen to in that moment when it gets really hard."