In June, Celeste took the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury wearing smudged black eye makeup and a leather jacket with feather-like textures fastened at the neck. She embodied both glamour and sorrow—like a bird with clipped wings. “My first album came out nearly five years ago, and I didn’t expect the follow-up to take this long,” she admitted. “But I’m here now.”
Celeste rose to fame in 2020 with a voice that echoed Billie Holiday’s haunting beauty, yet carried a distinctly British lilt—a controlled, powerful vibrato that moved listeners. Though her jazz-infused ballads weren’t typical chart-toppers, her debut album Not Your Muse became the first by a British female artist in five years to hit No. 1, earning a Mercury Prize nomination. She also won the BBC’s Sound of 2020 poll and the Brit Award for Rising Star, followed by an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song (“Hear My Voice” from The Trial of the Chicago 7). But the pandemic stalled her momentum, forcing her to put touring plans on hold. Reflecting on those years, she says, “Sometimes you worry: Are you still on your path?”
At Glastonbury, Celeste was mesmerizing—spectacular yet haunting. But now, as we walk through London’s Hyde Park, she’s relaxed, laughing easily. She pauses, distracted by a carousel. “They’re my favorite! I love the music,” she says before returning to the topic of her long-awaited second album, Woman of Faces, due in November.
“The title was like a diagnosis of how I feel sometimes—a way to understand my own complexity,” she explains. Born Celeste Waite in California to a Jamaican father and a mother from Dagenham, East London, she moved to England as a toddler after her parents split. “It was almost like my mother was my sister,” she recalls, “because we were both being raised by my grandparents.”
Though she cherishes those memories, she admits to a lingering melancholy. “I’ve always had this little tinge of sadness,” she says, possibly tied to her early displacement. “You move from America to England too young to remember, but you know you left connections behind.” She wondered if she’d eventually need a mental health diagnosis but found solace in music instead. “Other artists’ lyrics, emotions, even their style—that’s always been my remedy.”
Often compared to Adele and Amy Winehouse, Celeste took a different path, skipping the Brit School to study music technology in Brighton while working at a pub. “I’m glad I taught myself to sing,” she says. “It gave me rawness and authenticity.” Her father’s death from lung cancer at 16 deepened her connection to music. “Losing someone makes you wake up stunned every day. Eventually, you have to choose—to either fall apart or find something to pour yourself into. For me, it was music.”The album Woman of Faces will be released on November 14th by Polydor.
For support in the UK and Ireland, you can contact Samaritans by calling 116 123 for free, or emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie.
In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, chat online at 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to speak with a crisis counselor.
In Australia, Lifeline provides crisis support at 13 11 14.
For helplines in other countries, visit befrienders.org.
