Jessie Ware

Jessie Ware is the daughter of Helena (Lennie) Ware, a social worker, and John Ware, a BBC Panorama reporter. She has an older sister, Hannah Ware, who is an actress.

She grew up in Clapham, London and attended Alleyn's School, in Dulwich along with singer Jack Peñate, Felix White (formerly of The Maccabees), and Florence Welch. In a production of Guys and Dolls, Ware played the lead, Adelaide, while Welch had a walk-on part as a Salvation Army girl. "You know when you have girls at school where people whisper, 'She can really sing'? That was Jessie," Welch told The Independent.

After studying English Literature at the University of Sussex, Ware tried her hand at journalism, working for The Jewish Chronicle and The Daily Mirror. She also worked as a PA at Love Productions, where her office mate Erika Leonard - later known to the world as E.L. James of Fifty Shades of Grey fame - shared passages of her steamy manuscript-in-progress. "I certainly learned a few things!" Jessie quipped.