Corinne Bailey Rae 'at the bottom of the ocean' following husband's death
Singer Corinne Bailey Rae says she is still going through the grieving process following the death of her husband - and at times has felt like she is "at the bottom of the ocean".
The chart star's partner Jason Rae died nearly two years ago after an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol following a drinking session with a friend.
But Bailey Rae, 30, said there are also still times when she feels the whole thing did not happen.
Jason Rae died in March 2008 at a Leeds flat. An inquest recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
In an interview with the February edition of Mojo magazine she said she had been "pinballed around" by the different stages of her grief.
"For the first few months I thought I was doing it wrong because it wasn't coming to me," she said. "Then there would be times when I really, really would feel it. I used to feel like I was right at the bottom of the ocean. Totally overwhelmed. You felt like you'd be able to drift back up to the surface and breathe again."
She continued: "I definitely still feel like I'm in that process. The one useful thing I feel anybody's said to me is how long a process it is. There are lots of times, even now, when it feels like it hasn't really happened."
When the couple met she was a university student in the city and he had moved there from Aberdeen to study jazz.
Bailey Rae said she was not angry with him but said: "You know how angry with himself he would have been."
She has written about their relationship and her loss on her forthcoming second album The Sea. But the Put Your Records On singer said she struggled to write in the wake of her husband's death.
"I didn't write any songs for ages, nine or 10 months. I didn't hear anything," she said.
She told Mojo that touring for 18 months would help to distract her from her loss: "I want to express how I'm feeling but also it's something to do. It's going to take up so much of my time - and I want my time to be taken up."
