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Jess Gylnne’s supposed ‘lifetime ban’ from the Isle Of Wight Festival has been reversed after less than a year.
As you may recall, festival boss John Gidding banned the singer from performing at future events last June, after she cancelled her scheduled set at the eleventh hour.
Jess cited exhaustion after pulling out of her slot just hours before, having only completed her support slot on the Spice Girls’ stadium tour a day earlier.
Giddings said at the time that he was “shocked” by Jess’ actions, claiming she had showed “no regard for people that bought a ticket”.
“She will never be booked to play the Isle of Wight again,” he told The Mirror at the time.
However, it seems that organisers may have had a change of heart.
On Friday morning – the day that this year’s event had been due to launch – the line-up for the 2021 festival was announced, and Jess’ name was a surprising addition.
According to an Isle Of Wight press release, Jess said: “The Isle of Wight Festival and Jess Glynne have unfinished business and both are delighted that she will be returning next year. Jess is coming back for her fans and will have a show for you that will not disappoint, so get ready!”
Nice use of the third person there, Jess.
HuffPost UK has also contacted a representative for the Isle Of Wight Festival over the decision to reverse Jess’ ‘lifetime ban’.
Shortly after Jess’ Isle Of Wight cancellation, it was suggested that she had been out at an afterparty until the early hours of the morning the previous night, having completed her final show on the Spice Girls’ UK tour.
Jess confirmed this to be the case in a statement posted on Twitter, in which she also revealed she’s had to axe a number of additional gigs on medical grounds.
“It absolutely kills me to say this – especially given what has happened in the past few weeks – but on the advice of my throat surgeon, I am going to have to cancel my next shows through until July 14 and I hope to be back as soon as possible after that,” she wrote.
“I know many of my fans feel I let them down so badly when I pulled out of the Isle Of Wight festival but the reason I knew I just wasn’t going to be able to make that performance has now been made clear to me by my doctor, Dr Zeitels.
“It is true that I went out and celebrated the end of the Spice tour. That was a massive high for me and I wanted to mark it with the women who’d become friends and mentors to me, but I had also been suffering on and off for weeks with anxiety about my voice. It wasn’t right. I wasn’t sounding my best and I felt there was something wrong.”
A month before her Isle Of Wight cancellation, Jess pulled out of a performance at Radio 1’s Big Weekend, again just hours before she was due to take to the stage, saying she’d lost her voice.
Radio 1 DJ Greg James later revealed that her band had already arrived at the venue when Jess cancelled, tweeting: “It was too late to tell the band and they’ve turned up and can’t leave as the bus driver has worked too many hours so they’ve all decided to go into town and watch Aladdin.”