But as well as celebrating her sexual self, her album deals
with her experience of sexual assault. “When you live
your life as proudly/ And as sexually as I like to be/ You
took that from me and you used it/ But I’ll never lose it,”
she sings on the opening track, I’m Fine. For her, having
both the fun of sex and the trauma of sexual assault on
this album was important: “Because we still remain — it
doesn’t seem fair that it gets taken away from you, the
joy.” She wants to be open about it because she endured
initial feelings of self-blame in the aftermath of “very bad
experiences” and, more than anything, wants people to
know: “It’s not your fault.”
She is now in a relationship with a man but has long let
go of traditional ideas of a domestic life. Single women feel
understood by her, particularly those who think of them-
selves as complicated or messy. Does she feel pressure to
be messy to stay connected to those fans? “Sometimes
I think I always will be,” she says. “But I feel, more than
ever, that you only get to be alive once, and I really want to
feel it all. And I don’t want to be guilty about it.”
As a teenager growing up in a Christian household in
Rotherham with one brother, she was an unusual combi-
nation of a keen cricketer and musical theatre enthusiast.
Her father is a retired steelworker and her mother
a secretary. She discovered her own sexuality young:
“Damien Rice on the boom box. Lava lamp on. Between
shifts at waitressing at the pub, I’d have this quiet three
hours at home,” she says, hooting with laughter. “The
second I figured out what my clit did, I was like, ‘Oh, this
is what life’s about.’ ” But she didn’t share her discovery
with anyone else for a while, losing her virginity aged 20.
“I was scared. I’m such a weird mix of painfully shy and
strange and scared and, like, Christian shit and small-town
shit, versus all this,” she says, gesturing at herself.
She was in bands from the age of 18, and in 2006, aged
20, formed the indie-folk duo Slow Club with Charles
Watson in Sheffield. They were critically acclaimed and
performed at Glastonbury and supported the likes of
Florence + the Machine and Mumford & Sons on tour,
but disbanded in 2017 after five albums together. She
released Compliments Please, her first solo album under the
name of Self Esteem, in 2019, but it was Prioritise Pleasure
that firmly established her as a much-loved solo artist.
For a while she lied about her age, aware of how
ruthlessly ageist the music industry is when it comes to
women. But now it is something she’s proud of: “The Brit
nomination is hilarious because I think it’s brilliant getting
best newcomer at 35. How good?” she beams.
In a recent trend for millennials to post throwback
photos online of mid-Noughties try-hard fashion, dubbed
“Indie Sleaze”, she shared old photos of herself looking
both twee and withdrawn. In them she is almost unrecog-
nisable. “All the indie stuff, those dresses, I’ve never felt
comfy like that,” she says. “I love menswear more than
I love womenswear, but then I want to celebrate the fact
that my body is inherently f ***ing female. I don’t want to
feel sad about it any more or hide it. I was born with the
most amazing ‘barmaid on Coronation Street’ body.”
“You know, my biggest terror is my nudes,” she says.
“I’ve taken a lot of nudes in my life. I’ve taken some
beautiful, beautiful pieces of work. And I once had a guy
sort of threaten me with it.” She tells me that she looked to
how Madonna reclaimed the nude pictures she had posed
for before she became famous after they were sold to
Playboy and Penthouse without her consent: her responseVintage Vivienne Westwood corset, Rocking
Horse shoes and long pearl necklace, from
Mr Stephen Philip, @mrstevenphilip. Knit
dress, £415, David Koma; selfridges.com.
Twinset and Screws pearl necklace, £525,
Motley x Frances Wadsworth Jones18 • The Sunday Times Style