Jamelia has spoken candidly about her personal experiences with domestic violence, revealing that her abusive relationship even left her fearing for her life.
During an emotional discussion on Wednesday afternoon’s ‘Loose Women’, Jamelia said that she still found her experiences “the hardest thing to talk about”, explaining that she was speaking out so that other women suffering would not feel like they were alone.
Jamelia
She said: “For me, the best thing I could have ever done was to share my story. The best thing I could do was let other women know that they are not alone because that's exactly how I felt.
“I felt as if no one would understand, no one would get it. I couldn't tell anyone I felt so embarrassed.
“You also have to understand that this was whilst I was enjoying a career and i would be on ‘Top Of The Pops’ one minute and then I would be going home and getting punched in the face. I’m sorry if that’s a bit shocking but that was my reality.”
The singer went on to admit that it was the birth of her daughter that finally pushed her to leave the abusive relationship, explaining: “My daughter was four weeks old and he hit me when I was breastfeeding her. It was at that point that I realised that being in a relationship is a choice and I am choosing this and I am going to continue to choose this on behalf of my child.
"As scared as I was, I was completely fearful of being killed and I thought I'd much rather leave and risk him killing me, than stay with him and have my daughter watch him slowly kill me anyway."
Jamelia has sung about her abusive past in her single ‘Thank You’, a song which she claims first highlighted to her how massive a problem domestic violence still is.
She added: “It was purely a therapeutic experience for me. After releasing the song and getting hundreds and hundreds of letters - from women and people affected by domestic abuse - that was the first time that I felt ‘this is not only me, I'm not the only person in this situation’.”
Watch the video for Jamelia’s single ‘Thank You’ below: