Jess Wright is running a little late for our interview. Her five-month-old son has just done a wee on the leather sofa at the plush Marylebone Hotel in London where the former TOWIE star is launching her new collaboration with baby brand My 1st Years.
“Presley’s like a bull in a China shop,” laughs Jess as she sits down to chat following a speedy nappy change. “He’s all singing, all dancing – kicking his legs and grabbing things. He’s full of character. He’s so ready for solids, though. He’s a hungry baby. He’s not dropping that night feed which is driving me mad. He’s stirring every hour!”
The pride she feels when talking about Presley is a joy to see, as her motherhood journey has been far from easy. The 37-year-old – who discovered she was pregnant days after tying the knot with business owner William Lee-Kemp – gave birth to Presley in May.
Her son had been so longed for that the couple had their embryos frozen during lockdown as a precaution in case they couldn’t have kids naturally – but they didn’t need to use them. However, after Presley was born, Jess suffered from postnatal depression that left her crying inconsolably for weeks on end.
“It lasted four weeks then all of a sudden I woke up feeling a lot better than I had been feeling,” she says. “It’s that fear when you first have a baby – that’s the only way to describe it. When you leave the hospital and you have to keep this child that’s so precious alive.
"It’s just the biggest emotional roller-coaster you can go on, and then you have hormones you can’t control. It was a lot to take on for my mental health. I’m so much better now, thank God.”
The night before our interview with Jess, Kylie Jenner spoke about her dark battle with the “baby blues” following the birth of her second child with Travis Scott. In an episode of her reality show, The Kardashians, Kylie said she “cried non-stop all day for the first three weeks”, adding that she “lay in bed and my head would hurt so much”. It was a feeling that resonated deeply with Jess.
“I think the baby blues are so sugar coated,” she says. “The fact that they’re even called the baby blues is wrong. For me, this was a whole new level of lowness. It’s incredibly important to talk about it because when you see someone else is suffering, it makes you feel you’re not abnormal. And it’s good for us to do it in the public eye because we’ve got such a big outreach – we can express it to so many people and they can feel like they’re not alone.
“When people ask if it’s put me off having another one, I’m not going to lie – I have to really consider that it may happen again but I think the key is I’ll be prepared next time so I might have a bit of warning.”
Preston’s birth was a traumatic experience for Jess. She was rushed in for an emergency C-section when her labour struggled to progress and Presley’s heart rate dropped. The panic continued after he was born because he stopped breathing and his oxygen fell, at which point he was rushed off to the newborn intensive care unit. It wasn’t until five long nights later that Jess was finally able to leave hospital with her newborn.
After her ordeal, Jess – who has been on antidepressants since she was prescribed them 10 years ago – tells us that she and William will wait a while before expanding their family. But she plans to use their frozen embryos when they do.
“As I’ll be older, so will my eggs, so it will be better to use my embryos,” she says. “It’s almost like, they’re there so why wouldn’t we use the better, fertilised eggs? Two of my best friends have just frozen their eggs. It’s another subject that’s not spoken about enough. We should be taught this at school.
“My mum went through the menopause at 41 and my nan did too. So when I turned 35 and we were getting married during the pandemic, we had to keep pushing the wedding back and at one point I got scared. I was like, ‘What if we push it back, push it back and push it back and then I go through the menopause?’ I kept panicking about it. Girls are going through the menopause as young as 30. If only they knew. I might have frozen my eggs at 30 if I’d have known about it then.”
Now that she’s come through the toughest of times, Jess is focusing on being the best mum she can be, and that means she’s back at work helping to support her family. Her new collaboration with My 1st Years has given her some much-needed focus.
“I’m so proud of this,” she says. “My 1st Years has been my go-to for baby gifts for my family and friends forever.
“I just love my work – I don’t think I could be a stay-at-home mum at this point. I’m the kind of person that needs that time to be able to fulfil my dreams as well as being a mum and I shouldn’t feel guilty about that.”
But like many mums, Jess does feel guilty. “I do get a lot of mum guilt, a hell of a lot,” she says. “I was out with Presley past 6pm at a Marks & Spencer event – it was an amazing evening with all their Christmas stuff, which he was obsessed with because of the sensory. But I’m like, ‘This isn’t right – he needs to be at home with his routine.’ It’s a constant, isn’t it? You never feel like you’re doing the right thing.”
Being in the spotlight means Jess’s parenting skills come under extra scrutiny. She tells us that she has been the target of cruel comments on social media, with people passing judgement about her leaving the house without her baby in recent weeks.
“I got a message the other day saying, ‘How dare you go out and about when your son is so young,’ just because I’d left the house without him,” she says.“I’m like, ‘You have no idea what I’ve been through – and I have a mortgage to pay, too.’ These people think just because we’re in the public eye and our job can seem quite glamorous, that we’re very privileged but we also have bills to pay.
“This is work, this is our job – what do you want us to do? Turn it down just because it’s going to upset you?”
Nights out are rare for Jess and William, who she met through her brother Mark Wright. Even though Jess’s mum, Carol, 62, is on regular grandma duties, the couple’s idea of a dream date would be an early night rather than a fancy evening out.
“William and I are so lucky we’ve got my mum and she’s so hands-on,” Jess says. “She’s had Presley a lot of times so we do get alone time.
“The thing is, we don’t want to go out! We want to sit on the sofa with zero worry or anything to move for and have an early night with zero interactions.
“We just want a night off so we can sit in and go to bed at 7pm and not wake up all night!”
Jess Wright has launched her new collection, Jess Wright Baby at My 1st Years. You can buy the collection at my1styears.com
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