Craig David credits his years of celibacy for helping him usher in a new era of creativity.
David stepped onto the music scene with his breakout song, “7 Days,” which boasted about “making love by Wednesday, and then on Thursday, and Friday and Saturday.” Fast forward to recent years, David has been abstinent for over 365 days.
The 42-year old singer, appeared on Friday’s episode of “The TMZ Podcast,” where he revealed he’s been celibate for the last two years and it’s helped him reach his creative peak as an artist.
“When I did the first album, Born to Do It, I was 17 years old. So these were all aspirations,” he said.
David shared that he decided take a pause from his bedroom escapades to see what life had to offer sans physical intimacy.
While the British singer confessed he wasn’t looking to explore celibacy for the work status, it has been a bonus.
“I’m just in a really wholesome part in my life.”
“In a funny way, as much as I was like, ‘Wow,’ to myself for a moment, it just felt that creativity has been on a hundred, on a max for those two years,” he explained.
In an interview with ‘The Louis Theroux Podcast’, David detailed how he favored short-term, surface-level relationships with women in his twenties and thirties and keep them at “arm’s length” because he was afraid of heartbreak.
“Unless you are both on a level, you are going to spill over which can go into many different traumas. It can be like that rejection years ago for me which has now become my defense mechanism,” he said, speaking about the “pain” he felt from his first-ever heartbreak.
“If we can’t deep dive, if I can’t have a conversation and at the same time laugh like crazy with you, and see the beauty from within you, then we’re just gonna be doing the same game that I’ve been playing since day one. I don’t want that anymore.”
He also spoke about being left with heartache from a two-week romance when he was 16, which he said “closed down” his heart.
Craig shared, “I had never felt anything like that before. My heart kind of closed down.”
David was originally scheduled to make an appearance in Las Vegas as a performer at Usher’s Lovers & Friends festival on Saturday.
However, the festival was canceled at the last minute on Friday evening “due to dangerous weather predicted for Saturday,” leaving festival promoters in hot water after concertgoers were notified about the abrupt cancellation.
Despite the festival cancellation, David has several other shows lined up for his “7 Days” tour.