Born in London in 1987, Fleur East is a musician and presenter. As a contestant on 2014’s X Factor, her cover of Uptown Funk was so popular it charted before Mark Ronson’s original was released. After she finished in second place, her debut single, Sax, went platinum. She parted ways with Simon Cowell’s label in 2017, setting up her own, Platinum East, on which she released her 2020 album Fearless. She is now a host on Hits Radio and is married to the stylist and designer Marcel Badiane-Robin. Her new single, Count the Ways, is out now.
My mum loved to put me in the most flamboyant dresses you can imagine: big poofy sleeves and skirts and shoulder pads, with coloured socks to match. This photo was most likely to have been taken at a family gathering in our house in Walthamstow, north‑east London – I’m about three and I look fed up. I was probably overtired, but all my family were playing music and having fun and laughing. My expression is screaming: “Come on, take the picture! I want to go to bed.”
