Emeli Sandé: ‘Being a woman in the music industry definitely made me feel insecure about the way I looked’
Emeli Sandé can still remember that moment in 2012 when, sporting a vertiginous, blonde quiff, she belted out her smash hit “Read All About It” at the closing ceremony. “It’s one of those memories that I can still visualise so easily,” Sandé, now 36, tells me on a video call, shutting her eyes briefly as if to conjure the scene. “I can remember seeing all those eyes on me and thinking, ‘You really don’t want to mess up.’” It was also a moment that seemed to perfectly encapsulate the spirit of the time: “There was a feeling of togetherness and this collective hope. Everyone was excited for the next decade and the future. A lot has changed, obviously. There are things we didn’t see coming, and deeper divisions now.”
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