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Jordan Stephens has given a rare insight into his relationship with Jade Thirlwall.
The musician, 32, admitted he ‘didn’t think I could feel love like this’ and is in a ‘lovely place’ with the singer, 31, where he feels safe and loved.
The couple began dating in 2020 during the first coronavirus lockdown after Jade slipped into the Rizzle Kicks star’s Instagram direct messages.
Jordan, who has written an unflinching autobiography Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak and Dog, told MailOnline: ‘I have to give a shout out to my current girlfriend. The relationship I’m in now I feel secure and safe. I feel love and I feel connected to a person.
‘I didn’t have an understanding that I could feel love like this.’
Jordan Stephens has given a rare insight into his relationship with Jade Thirlwall
The musician, 32, admitted he ‘didn’t think I could feel love like this’ and is in a ‘lovely place’ with the singer, 31, where he feels safe and loved
Before Jade, Jordan was in a relationship with actress Amber Anderson. They split in 2019.
Speaking at the Kite Festival, a new festival of music and ideas at Abbey Road Studios, Jordan said he has become more open with his feelings as he’s got older.
He said: ‘I would never recommend somebody keep their heart closed for a long time because it’s isolating and I think that’s where the more damaging behaviours will come from.
‘People who have been so traumatised or experienced such a significant heartbreak at such a young age ,that their heart is closed – you can’t connect to people like that, so you are able to act in unempathetic ways.
‘The flipside is there are people who keep their heart too open, I really believe that too, that they allow everything in and they are unable to cope because it’s our responsibility to hold boundaries.
‘I know the feeling of when my heart is around certain people and when I’m not. Boundaries have been a big lesson for me. Knowing when I just have to shut the door slightly.
Jordan said he doesn’t mention Rizzle Kicks at all in the book or ‘anything about my material existence’.
Jordan found fame in his hip hop duo with Harley Sylvester Alexander-Sule. The duo had number one song Heart Skips A Beat, also featuring Olly Murs, along with other hits including When I Was A Youngster, Mama Do The Hump and Down With The Trumpets.
In August they released a new single, Javelin, their first release after putting the duo on hiatus eight years prior.
Jordan found fame in his hip hop duo with Harley Sylvester Alexander-Sule. The duo had number one song Heart Skips A Beat
Before Jade, Jordan was in a relationship with actress Amber Anderson. They split in 2019 (pictured last month)
The book follows the star’s rise to fame in Rizzle Kicks while behind the scenes he battled ‘brutal patterns of self-harm and destructive coping mechanisms’.
He said: ‘I didn’t think it was important. I laid the context for it in that I had time and money but my experience of heartbreak was such an epic grief that I didn’t think it separated me from anybody on the planet.
‘Everybody is going to lose someone or something and the more we understand about that experience, the more it will bring us together. That vulnerability breeds connection.’
Jordan commented on critics praising him for his ‘brutal’ honesty in the book.
‘I want to create that tense feeling because ultimately I went through a pretty epic heartbreak relative to my experience and at the time I didn’t feel as though there was much on offer.
‘I hadn’t seen a complete dissection of emotion in that way, so I thought it best that I give it a go as a service to people like me. Not just specifically young men but I guess most applicable to young men who perhaps lack guidance or understanding that the emotional world is one that we must have a balanced relationship with, its not optional, it’s necessary.’
