Born in 1991 in East Tilbury, Essex, pop star Anne-Marie started writing songs in her teens. As a child, she appeared in West End productions of Les Misérables and Whistle Down the Wind, as well as becoming a triple world champion and black belt in Shotokan karate. Audiences first heard her in 2014, as a vocalist for drum’n’bass four-piece Rudimental, with whom she toured for two years before she launched a pop career, which included her 2016 Clean Bandit collaboration and Christmas No 1 Rockabye, and two successful solo albums. Her third, Unhealthy, is out now.
Aged six and covered in candyfloss, this is me in my element. My family would stay in Butlin’s, Clacton-on-Sea, when I was growing up. I’d go back now if I could – for the bingo and meals that were a bit like school dinners. Perfect.
My diet growing up was terrible. I loved anything sweet, even though the sugar would make me go nuts. I would spend a lot of car journeys with my sister pretending that Mum and Dad’s seats were video cameras and we were pop stars recording a video. We’d make a racket and it would drive my parents up the wall. Aside from sweets, I only really ate sandwiches: in the morning, I’d wake up and have peanut butter on toast, then at school I’d have a cheese sandwich, and when I came home I’d have two cheese sandwiches for dinner. Mum and Dad were worried about my growth but I ended up fine. It’s a miracle my skin is OK. I have really lucked out there.
I was a proper joyful little girl. Back when this was taken, I was in dance school every Saturday and falling in love with musical theatre. I was just about to get a role in a West End production of Les Mis, where I was paid £30 for each show. I thought I was rich! It was an amazing time, not just because I was performing, but because my personality just really matched being a child. As I started getting older, I realised I wasn’t very compatible with being an adult. I was so spontaneous and carefree and boisterous, and it’s not always easy to be like that when you’re a grownup.
Being a karate champion, I was such a perfectionist at a young age, and wanted to win at everything sporty. I was that kid who wouldn’t stop until they got it right. But when it came to exams and learning, my attention span became a massive problem. I didn’t get diagnosed with ADHD until I was in college, so until then schoolteachers thought I just didn’t care. The truth was I couldn’t concentrate. People would call out “Goldfish! Goldfish!” in lessons as I wasn’t following whatever was being taught. It was pretty embarrassing.
Along with the ADHD I was a bit sad, too. While I had a brilliant time at home and on stage, I had a crap time at secondary school and lost who I was completely. I went totally silent. When I became a teenager, I thought the most important thing was to fit in – to be friends with a certain group of people and to spend my time focusing on being cool and pretty instead of being happy. Then there was a specific situation with my social group: I had a boyfriend, but one night I spoke to another guy on the phone. At school, people found out and accused me of cheating on him. Suddenly, everyone stopped talking to me. I wish I had told someone what was going on but I didn’t because shame makes you want to keep things private, which is annoying because sharing it unlocks the problem. Instead, I retreated into myself and got so quiet and non-reactive that I became an easy target at school. On the plus side, that whole isolating experience has made me really empathic and caring of people who are feeling low.
Music was always my freedom. When I got home from school I’d always go into my room and play Christina Aguilera, Pink and Alicia Keys on repeat. It was my release from life, something I learned from my dad, who would come home from work and put his music on really loud if he’d had a hard day.
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He inspired my style, too: Dad is a mod, and I wanted to be a modette, so when I was a teenager I cut my hair short and wore braces. I had no money, so I’d get all my clothes from charity shops where I’d always find something that no one else would be wearing. I was itching to be different and as a result I’ve had every hairstyle and colour going. It’s not always been welcomed: when I started in the music industry, I went to one of my first big meetings with a label with my former manager. Before we got there he said: “Take that charity shop jumper off – we need to take you shopping to get some high fashion clothes.” I thought: “What?” After that I got a bit self-conscious and thought I’d have to look a certain way. Then, as a reaction to that, I started to fight against looking the way people expect a pop star to look – sometimes to my own detriment. There’ve been times I’ve tried to look like a caricature. I was wearing crazy shit at points in my career – clothes that were disgusting, in all honesty, because I was rebelling against fitting in.
Before I went solo, I was touring with Rudimental and having the most fun. Every day the plan was: sleep, wake up whenever you want, go on stage, party, sleep and then do it all over again. I thought: this is easy. When I did my first solo album, I realised it was way harder and more relentless. I’d be travelling and then straight into promo, then performing, with no break in between. I worked hard and put a lot of pressure on myself because I was worried about being dropped or not being in the Top 10. I think that’s from winning everything in karate as a kid. I assumed I was going to win in life. So when I wasn’t always at the top, it made me exhausted and a bit overwhelmed. Since then, it’s been a long battle to try to get the balance right.
I was in LA for a writing trip a few years ago and I went to see a psychic, and she said to me: “Make sure you don’t lose your inner child.” I thought, what does that mean? When it sank in, I realised it was true. For a while, life got too serious. Which it does, when you get older. But I made a commitment that from that moment on I would try to reconnect with that younger self again. Not exactly the same – I try to be more healthy these days and have gherkins, tomatoes, avocado and bananas on my rider rather than candy floss. But there’s just also a load of bread and crisps. I eat five packs a day. I have an avocado afterwards, so it evens it out.
Now I feel I can look however I want. I’ve gone back to my natural brown hair for the first time in years. And I make whatever music I want, because I feel as if I have the confidence to tell people what I really think. I’ve mixed and mastered my new album. I did the artwork. I’ve achieved what I’ve been fighting for since the start. I’m finally at peace – and it’s only taken 10 years!