Jessie’s inspirational life outside The Traitors, from X Factor to life with a stammerJessie Stride is quickly becoming one of everyone’s favourite Faithfuls on The Traitors this year, so it’s time to have a look at her life outside the Scottish castle before she gets murdered. I fear it will be soon. Alongside Harriet, she’s definitely one of the biggest threats to the Traitors right now.
Jessie from The Traitors is a hairstylist by day
Jessie is 28 years old and from Hull, and she works as a hairdresser. Her Instagram profile jessierouxhair is completely dedicated to hairstyling, and she describes herself as a “Creative Colourist,” with expertise in brights. That’s not surprising considering her vivid red locks. She’s based at a salon called No 1 in Hessle, if you want to book her.
However, aside from hairdressing, she also spends her life dedicated to helping others living with a stammer and inspiring them to live life to the fullest.
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(@jessierouxhair)She’s had speech difficulties since she was four
A teacher first noticed Jessie’s speech difficulties when she was four. She told the Daily Mail in 2017: “I would struggle to speak… my mouth would open, but words would struggle to come out. Mum wasn’t sure if I was just learning how to speak, or if it was something more serious. But as I got older, I’d try and nod along to conversations, saying things like ‘Uh huh,’ so I didn’t have to reply.”
It didn’t really affect her in primary school, but when Jessie got to secondary school she started getting bullied. At one point, she couldn’t even cry for help.
“My friends all turned against me and I had no one to talk to about what was happening to me. Aged 12, I remember a group of 20 people surrounded me and were teasing me about my voice. I was trying to shout, ‘Help,’ but couldn’t get the words out. It got so bad, to the point that I didn’t want to go to school because I couldn’t stand up for myself,” she recalled.
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It got so bad that she had to change schools when she was 13. The new school was a lot better, and she made good friends, but every day was still a struggle.
“Some days I would feel ok to speak, but then other times I couldn’t even string two words together. When it came to taking the register, other people would say “yes” for me. The worst part was struggling to even say my own name. That was the hardest part, just saying ‘Jessie’ was such a challenge,” she added.
The Traitors’ Jessie has always loved to sing
The one thing that always helped with her stammer was singing. “I started singing and writing songs, from the age of eight. I could never understand why, but when I sang I wouldn’t stutter,” Jessie said.
“My mum would come upstairs to my room and listen to me sing. Sometimes, when I couldn’t tell her about my day, I would sing it. It was a real release. I felt like I was writing out my emotions, letting it all out. But it was still frustrating. My stammer was so bad, I couldn’t even ring a friend for a chat.”
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And she auditioned for The X Factor a decade ago
After college, Jessie did a speech course to help her stammer and it completely changed her life, so much that she went and auditioned for The X Factor with her own song about life with a stammer.
“When my speech started to come back I thought, ‘I’m going to turn this around and make a positive out of what’s happened’. So I wrote this song called Control and even auditioned for the The X Factor in May 2016,” she said.
The lyrics say: “I wanna tell you what I’m thinking, but it’s something I don’t choose. Cause you don’t know what it feels like, to have a voice that you can’t use.”
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Featured image credit: BBC
