Diary Entry: The secret is out!

Today is the day I can finally tell you!

Okay. Gah.

This is officially the first time I am writing about the thing that is being announced today!

I am excited, nervous, happy, scared, proud… a mixed bag of everything really!

You have chosen to subscribe to this Substack, and tens of thousands of you read my articles every month. It only seems fair that this is where I write about the announcement before anywhere else.

Let me tell you the story of how this all came to be.

Back in May 2021, Jaimi and I got married. We had one of those little lockdown weddings with less than 30 people, whilst politicians got smashed at parties the peasants weren’t allowed to have. We call that one ‘The Little Wedding’. That was our actual marriage date. It was a beautiful ceremony and lovely little party, but we still wanted our dream wedding, so we booked a country house in Derbyshire for August 2022. We call that ‘The Big Wedding’ in our house.

The Big Wedding had to be relaxed. We didn’t want the courses and courses of formal food, or the big speeches lasting hours. Jaimi said that she didn’t understand why anyone would want a wedding day, and then the equivalent of a shit Sunday Roast whilst sat there in suits and dresses. We wanted it to be fun. We decided to theme it like a festival.

We had streetfood carts, mini golf, space hoppers, bouncy castles, a live indie band - and we had a humanist ceremony in the apple orchard in the beautiful sunshine. It was, above all, a tonne of fun. It was the best day I have ever lived. It was brilliant.

We had one proviso: No speeches, and no secrets.

Which we both broke. Secretly.

Jaimi surprised me by suddenly getting up on stage and performing with the live band behind her. Some of you will know what a talented musician she is, and that my favourite sound in the world is her vocals and guitar. She has recently been in the studio, too! I was absolutely blown away, and just adored every moment of it. She ended up doing an encore, and then told me afterwards that she had been planning it with the band for weeks. The videos and photos of that entire thing are some of my favourites in the world.

Anyway, I also broke the promise. I certainly did not get up to perform with the band, though. No one wants or needs that in their life.

As we stood to welcome everyone to the afterparty, I took a deep breath and said:

“I know we agreed no speeches… But I would like you all to raise your glasses as I welcome you all to The Comedy Roast of Jaimi Shrive!”

The room cheered.

Yep. I had written a 20 minute stand-up comedy piece about me and Jaimi. About our life together, our weird experiences, why I loved her so much, and what our life would be like in the coming years.

I had practised it on several people in the weeks prior, and it went down perfectly. Everyone fell about laughing, and most importantly, Jaimi loved every moment of my stupid stand-up. A couple of people filmed it for me, and I still laugh watching it back.

As everyone went back to their partying and drinking, I went outside for some fresh air, followed by my publisher, Andreas. This dude and me are the most unlikely of friends, and yet over the years of my books, we have become close, and I regard him as one of the people I trust and care about most. Sometimes, you just meet people in life, and you click.

He gave me that look. The look of, ‘what the fuck was that in there?’ mixed with ‘you didn’t tell me you were going to do that, you sneaky little shit!"

“Well…” He said eventually.

“You didn’t mention to me that you could write comedy!”

I just laughed at him.

“You were very, very good in there!”

“Thanks, mate,” I hugged him.

A few months later, we were sat in my dining room discussing my new book. I had four or five ideas sketched out, and we didn’t like any of them. Sure, I could write any of them. They would probably do well, too. But my heart wasn’t in any of them. I told him I didn’t feel any love for them, and he admitted he felt the same way.

We bantered back and forth before discussing the fact that my followers had been asking me to write about my life for years, and I had been avoiding it. I showed him messages from women around the world asking me to write my life story.

“I just don’t feel old enough yet…” I hesitated.

“Darling. You are 31 years old. You are not getting any younger!” He laughed at me.

“Cheers. Fucking hell,” I laughed back.

“You could write it as a comedy… like your comedy roast…” He suggested, looking over his coffee at me.

I smiled.

A comedy. About my life.

A dark, deep, hilarious, story - about the wild ride that is my life?

“Are you fucking sure?” I laughed back.

“Yes. Do it.”

And so, my wonderful followers and friends - I am fucking terrified to announce that I wrote a dark, gritty, honest comedy about my life, and its called ‘Underclass’.

At some point, you must fully embrace all aspects of who you are, and where you come from - and stop running from it or trying to be someone you are not. Stop trying to fit in. When you grow up in places like my council estate, you’re made to feel ashamed, embarrassed, stupid, and unworthy - but as the years have passed, the comments and judgement I have received from my peers and critics have ironically made me more proud, and more authentic of who I am. I’ve always been the underdog, but I’ve learned to love that position. Whilst it used to irritate me, now it amuses me. I’ve become an expert at doing everything I’m told I will never be able to achieve. 

It’s time we stopped lying about who we all are.

I can be a successful psychologist, I can be a businesswoman flying all over the world, I can be a Sunday Times Bestselling author, I can be the psychologist on trending Netflix series - AND I can be the funny, fierce Stokie girl in the ripped trackies, sitting on the garage roof smoking drugs and trying to forget what happened the night before. I can be a world-leading expert, and still feel totally lost. I can be the scholar making the keynote speech, and the kid waking up on a roundabout.

I can be the woman you look up to, and be the same old chav sliding around Stoke using Smirnoff Ice as a mixer.

I am all of these things and more. I’m so tired of psychologists pretending to be perfect humans, with no histories and no problems. It’s as if we go into these professional and academic environments, and are supposed to become these contextless authorities of human experience.

Fuck that.

It all feels so fake. Probably because it is.

I want young girls living in poverty and trauma to know that their circumstances might mould them, but they don’t determine or predict their future.

I want the message of this book to be: No matter your roots, your future is unwritten, and it belongs to you. 

What doesn’t kill you, doesn’t make you stronger, but it will give you a dark sense of humour, wild experiences no one quite believes, a string of new swear words, and a collection of coping mechanisms.

This book is not one story, it’s hundreds. Some are hilarious. Some are horrible. Some are inspirational. But all of them are part of me.

You can pre-order ‘Underclass’ directly from me here: Order here

ALL PRE-ORDERED COPIES OF UNDERCLASS WILL BE PERSONALLY SIGNED BY JESSICA 

You can pre-order ‘Underclass’ from Amazon Prime here: Order here

If you prefer another retailer, you can pre-order ‘Underclass’ from Waterstones, WHSmith, Foyles, Amazon, Blackwells and loads of other places here: Order here