With an in-my-face waggle of her plum-coloured talons, Gabrielle is recounting (loudly) how her daughter Patricia — 15 and snarky — views her mum’s back-to-work manicure: “I’m not going out with you like that, it’s minging.”
“She’s at that age,” continues the singer-songwriter, unabashed. “But when I was 15, I could never cheek my mum. I would have had no teeth left, literally,” she claims.
Born Louise Gabrielle Bobb, the 48-year-old was raised in Hackney and then all over south London by her “gipsy” mum. “They don’t realise they’re born,” she says of today’s teenagers, with a laugh.
Either way, her upbringing served her well, earning her five million record sales, two Brit Awards and 10 UK top tens.
From the release of her chart-topping debut single, Dreams, in 1993, Gabrielle’s was a lush, soulful, easy-going sound. Further hits followed, including Rise in 2000 and Out of Reach, from the Bridget Jones’s Diary soundtrack, the following year; along the way, she met Prince (twice), the Pope and, at Tony Blair’s request, performed for Nelson Mandela at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in 2000. But as she prepares to send her eighth album, the richly melodic Under My Skin, out into the world, she knows only too well the weight of expectation that comes when 11 years have passed since your last release.
And after sunglasses, an eye patch and a chic bob to conceal her ptosis, which causes an eyelid to droop, Gabrielle is now rocking an immaculate curtain of chin-sweeping hair that covers half her face — a sort of Phil-Oakey-cum-Game-of-Thrones princess hybrid.
Having spent decades in the spotlight, it is no surprise that Gabrielle remains unfazed by fame: she has an easy familiarity, and no qualms about revealing middle-aged angst and body-image collywobbles. At various points in our conversation, she will cheerfully anoint herself a “big bird” and “old bag”, though she has an air of many a rejoining-the-workforce mum, gratefully but apprehensively getting back in the saddle now that her youngest approaches the last lap of school. What separates her from other mums, perhaps, is a few million in the bank, and an ill-fated romantic life that would make your teeth ache.
When I ask if Patricia’s dad is around, Gabrielle recoils. It’s one of the few times she refuses to spill. “Ah! No! That’s — we don’t need to talk about that! I’m just a mum of two,” she laughs.
Her son, Jordan, 23, works at a London record company; his dad, Tony Antoniou, and Gabrielle had pretty much split up by the time he was born. That, unfortunately, wasn’t enough to prevent her from being dragged to court and on to the front pages of newspapers in 1997, after Antoniou was accused of decapitating his stepfather with a 2-ft long ceremonial sword.
“We were separated when he did that...”, she says of the case. Yet “when he did what he did, it wasn’t his picture, it was my picture they all used in the paper. To the point where people actually thought, ‘did [she] do it?’ No, I wasn’t even with him.”
At his trial at Nottingham Crown Court, at which Gabrielle was grilled about their relationship, Antoniou was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He’s been out now “for a few years, but I haven’t seen him”. Has Jordan?
“Of course not!” she says incredulously.
“It’s been 20-odd years. I’ve got an amazing son who went to university minus a father, graduated with a First... and he did all this as a boy of colour. I’m so proud of him. My son didn’t grow up with any strong male role models. And yet, how did he achieve this? Because he had a strong grandmother, and this mother. Ain’t no one gonna mess with my children!”
Having three younger brothers toughened Gabrielle up, helping her to develop a “bring it” attitude that came in handy at her all-girls’ comprehensive in Peckham. Teased for her lazy eye, she “wasn’t that girl in the corner crying”, she says. “There was no time to be boo-hoo about it”; her strategy was to “always [be] fighting my corner”.
That’s not to say that insecurities don’t afflict her. As she has contemplated her return to the limelight, fears over her body have abounded. “I’ve always been chunky,” she says. “I should have lost a ton of weight, but I haven’t. I get happy or hear some good news and I celebrate and drink a bloody whole bottle of wine. I eat when I’m sad, and I eat when I’m happy. I have to get to a decent weight, but it’s not happening.”
She insists her new record label didn’t put her under any pressure to become, well, match-fit. Rather, true to “Gobby Gaby” form, she pre-empted any concerns.
“I said to them: ‘I know we’ve got this videoshoot coming up but I’m just massive...’
“Have you noticed,” she leans in, conspiratorially, “there are no full-length photos of me, just headshots? There was one where I looked more like a geezer-bird — I just looked a bit masculine, with my big man-hands... I bet they’re bigger than yours.”
In the end, the promotional photographs are truer to the real Gabrielle. “I’ve been able to work my self-consciousness,” she says, “and if I can tell my story and encourage people, that’s a good enough thing. I’m testament to what you can achieve if you’re prepared to accept that you’re never going to be ‘the norm’.”
With a host of picture-perfect female singers from Dua Lipa to Rita Ora dominating the charts, Gabrielle is sanguine about her chance of another hit. “People are not looking for perfect Adele vocals from me, or Beyonce dance moves. They just want songs that I’ve been churning out, and they can sing along to, songs that have been the backdrop to their lives. I love that.”
That’s not to say a little reinvention isn’t afoot, though, and Gabrielle is raring to go on her own terms — starting with getting a tattoo before she’s 50.
“I’m at the right time of my life,” she says by way of explanation. “I’m middle-aged but I’m enjoying it. Most people are scared and start taking years off their age. No, I’m almost 50, and I’m proud. And if I have to get Botox later on, I will.”
Before that, though, she has other priorities: namely “touring this album to death. I want to be on the road and be a bit rock ‘n’ roll for the first time in my life. And have fun!” grins gung-ho, gobby Gabrielle. “ ‘Cause I’d forgotten how much fun this can be.”
