Jordin Sparks Says She’ll Never Make Herself Smaller for a Relationship Again

If you stayed up way too late watching Season 6 of American Idol in 2007, Jordin Sparks has been part of your world for a long time. She became the youngest winner in the show’s history at 17, and the career that followed was massive—over 10 million tracks sold, a role opposite Whitney Houston in Sparkle, and lead turns on Broadway in In the Heights and Waitress. These days she’s married to Dana Isaiah, raising their 7-year-old son DJ, and quietly working on new music she says is coming soon.

On What’s Your Spark?, she opens up her DMs and gets into everything from what marriage actually looks like when one of you is famous to why she pulled her son off the internet entirely. Here are the highlights, adapted from the episode.

How has being in the public eye affected your marriage?

“I was already who I was when I met my husband. And so he knew about the lights, the camera, the action, the traveling, and everything that comes with what I do…one thing that I wanted to make clear because I had sacrificed some pieces of myself or made myself smaller in relationships before was I was like, I’m not changing my career just to make you feel comfortable. Like, I’m not giving up on this…

…When I had to do Broadway, he was the most supportive person in the entire world and he supported me 100 percent…He moved across the country to New York with me. He helped keep everything together when I had to go to rehearsals and he had DJ. So you figure out a way to make it work.”

Why don’t you post your son anymore?

“I don’t post DJ anymore and it’s not because I’m not proud of him and I don’t love him. It’s because of those reasons that I keep him off of the internet. I want him to be able to decide when and where he shares himself…I feel like we still have a long way to go when figuring out how to keep kids safe in this world of social media and constant exposure.”

What does pouring into yourself actually look like on a daily basis?

“I just got this amazing light called the Glow Light from Sunlighten…ever since I got it, I’ve been sitting in front of that red light every day, multiple times a day. I think they said you can do two minutes every hour or 10 minutes every hour. And that is what I try and do. I feel so good after I sit in front of that light…I’ve noticed a difference in my skin. I’ve noticed a difference in my hair. I’ve noticed a difference in just kind of overall energy as well…

…My husband for my birthday bought me a vibration plate, which helps with lymphatic drainage. So I love to use that. I also have a sauna blanket that is a low EMF sauna blanket from Higher Dose that I can get into. Sometimes I’ll do the full one where I’m sweating in the blanket. Other times I just want to be in a warm embrace…I also listen to binaural frequencies or healing frequencies. There is a gentleman that I listen to…his name is Malte Martin and it’s called Healing Frequencies 2. I listen to that when I’m in the shower. I listen to it when I’m driving in the car…And then I like to look at my apps. I love my little astrology apps, my little moon apps and my encouraging affirmations.”

What’s a mistake you made early on that secretly made you better?

“I really didn’t like watching myself when I was younger. I didn’t like watching myself when I performed…I remember my nana telling me, ‘Jordan, you need to watch yourself so that you know what you’re doing on the stage.’ And I think that has definitely made me better. She told me that when I was like 13, 14 years old, so before I was even on Idol. And I took that into account and I have carried that with me ever since…not only does it make me aware of what I’m doing, I also get a chance to really look at how I am being seen to other people. And I think for me it kind of gives me a little bit of peace of mind.”

Which songs from your catalog deserved way more love than they got?

“’Next to You’ from my debut album, I really wanted that to be the next single after ‘One Step at a Time.’ And I believe that it could have been. I don’t quite know or understand what happened after that because after ‘Tattoo’ and ‘No Air’ and ‘One Step at a Time,’ it just kind of was like steadily building and then all of a sudden it was just like, ‘All right, well, that was a good run.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ So ‘Next to You’ off of that first album. There is also a deep cut, ‘Save Me,’ [which] was a bonus track off of my first album. And that song, I think for the time would have been really well received. Off of my second album, ‘Battlefield,’ I definitely think ‘No Parade’ should have been a single.”

Listen to the full episode onWhat’s Your Spark? with Jordin Sparks, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read Next

• The Secret Behind ‘You ARE the Father’ Is That Maury Didn’t Know Either
• Ashley Parker Angel Opens Up About Being Kicked Out at 16 Before O-Town
• Supermodel Miranda Kerr Says Lasting Beauty Starts With Inner Peace, Not Perfection