Natasha Bedingfield: 'I had US hits that England never heard. It was like being banished'

Natasha Bedingfield has revealed her label effectively "geo-blocked" her from the UK market, sending her to the US so her career could be tested away from British eyes. "I had hits in the US, but they were not released in England," she said. "It even sang at the White House for Obama, and my mum couldn't watch it. It was a bit like being banished."

The London-born singer, whose 2004 debut album Unwritten sold more than 2.3 million copies and produced the No 1 single These Words, was speaking in a retrospective interview timed to her new single, Dot Dot Dot.

How a sheepskin coat and a Jamaican church shaped her

Bedingfield, born in 1981 to New Zealand social-worker parents, grew up in inner-city south-east London with three siblings. "We didn't have much money, but I was rich in love," she said.

She was home-schooled from 11 to 16 — "a rebellious thing to do" at the time — because classroom noise overwhelmed her. "Too much noise makes me shut down. Is that a neurodiversity thing? Probably," she said, noting the irony given her profession.

A weekly Jamaican church that encouraged children into music gave her an early singing community.

What about her brother Daniel?

Daniel Bedingfield was "the more obvious musician" — the sibling commanding the house: "Everyone be quiet — I'm recording!" Family friends warned that two Bedingfields in one industry was unlikely to work. Natasha wrote privately until she told him: "I know this is your thing, but it's actually my thing, too. And I'm not trying to take over from you." He supported her entirely.

A psychology degree ended when her father intervened: "We all know that you're a singer-songwriter — that is what you should be doing."

Pop star against her will

Her label declared her a pop artist. Bedingfield objected. "I wasn't Britney," she said, naming Coldplay, Björk, India Arie and Stevie Wonder as her actual influences. A choreographed routine for the Single video left her cold. "They wanted to make me sexy, but the whole thing looked forced."

Unwritten, written for her younger brother with Danielle Brisebois of the New Radicals, began as a poem and was recorded without vocal showing-off. "I was just singing to my brother."

The BBC's Radio 2 later restricted I Wanna Have Your Babies for allegedly encouraging young listeners to reproduce. Bedingfield insists it was a joke about unspoken dating thoughts.

The US exile produced one perk. Having taught herself to read, she'd never heard "hyperbole" spoken aloud. "I sang it wrong for a long time, but told the Americans that was how you pronounced it in England."

Can a 2004 song have a second life?

It already has. Around the pandemic, dance videos made Unwritten a viral TikTok hit. "I thought TikTok was just a dance app and I didn't want to dance," she said. She has since embraced the song's second life.

After leaving her label, she spent roughly 10 years on corporate shows, touring, marriage and motherhood.

Her ambition now is explicit: "My goal now is to write my Purple Rain." She cites Tina Turner as proof that careers can take off in middle age. "So often it's, like, women are written off when they reach a certain age."

She'd still rather be in a studio than at a party, she said, "geeking out about a triple entendre". That, at least, hasn't changed.