Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Baftas 2024 – Famous
The singer views her setbacks in life as valuable lessons.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor believed losing her record deal saved her from becoming “totally terrible”.
The 'Murder on the Dancefloor' singer rose to fame in her teens as a member of the pop band theaudience. In 1999 the group broke up and Sophie was abandoned by her label. Today the 45-year-old looks back gratefully on this difficult time.
“The things that were very important to me in my late teens – my band and my boyfriend – I both lost early,” she tells Big Issue magazine. “My band had broken up and I was dropped by my label when I was 20. It goes one way very quickly and then the other very quickly. I think that was one of the things that probably stopped me from being a completely terrible person. I think if I had had one success after another, I would be disgusting today.”
Sophie found the period afterwards “quite humiliating” as she didn't know what to do with her life and feared her best days were over. “It was terrible when the band broke up.” “I felt very bad,” admits the Brit. “I felt like the best part of my career was already behind me and I didn't have a plan B. I felt like I had pretty much screwed up because I had found what I loved and it hadn't worked out. “All my friends were at university. I felt too old to go to university, two years behind them.”
