Example (Elliot Gleave) — British singer, rapper and producer who had multiple UK top-10 hits, including two number-one singles, before stepping away from radio-driven success.
The gist
Example reflects on a working-class London childhood, an early love of performing, and an Asperger's-spectrum mind he describes as a gift and a curse. He recounts how sudden fame and money at 23 sent him spiraling into drugs, alcohol and cheating until a family intervention and meeting his wife Erin reset his life. He talks candidly about loneliness on tour, the calming role of running, swimming, yoga and breath work, and the rarely discussed grief men feel after a miscarriage. He closes on what matters most now: being a dad, food, fitness and the pride of seeing his former band members become major songwriters.
Big reveals
- Example didn't try class-A drugs until 23, then 'went a bit off the rails with drugs and alcohol' after becoming famous.
- A weekend at Glastonbury where he disappeared for 48 hours triggered a family intervention.
- Meeting Erin in Australia in October 2011 was the catalyst that made him become honest and faithful again.
- His wife Erin gave birth standing up with no epidural or pain relief, and he says it was the most alive he has ever felt.
- They suffered a miscarriage with their second pregnancy at around five weeks.
- On Lorraine Kelly's show he was blindsided and asked to talk about losing the baby on air, becoming the first male guest to do so.
- His former guitarist David Stewart became the world's most-streamed songwriter, writing 'Dynamite' for BTS.
Things worth remembering
- As a child he had a photographic memory and memorized US states and entire Trivial Pursuit boxes.
- He has played over a thousand gigs and is about to release his eighth album.
- He describes constant racing thoughts, freestyling rhymes in his head for 45 minutes at the gym.
- He cites research that a breastfed baby's saliva signals the nipple to adjust the milk's nutrient content.
- He claims the tailbone blocks a baby's head, so women are biologically better giving birth standing or on all fours.
- He played the last sold-out UK tour before COVID (March 2020) and the first festival anywhere after lockdown in Darwin.
- He has performed in 27 European countries and headlined festivals in around ten of them.
- Multiple ex-band members went on to major careers: building Ed Sheeran's loop-pedal tech and live show, and producing for Kygo in Las Vegas.