Getty Ella Mai
Jayson Tatum has been linked on and off with Ella Mai, an English singer and songwriter, since 2020. While they have yet to make their rumored relationship Instagram official, the two were spotted together in the summer of 2022 and have fueled speculation as to their status since 2020. The Boston Celtics star’s rumored partner is a star in her own right as she is a successful R&B artist. The London-born singer now lives in the U.S.
Here’s what you need to know about Jayson Tatum’s rumored girlfriend Ella Mai:
1. Ella Mai Grew Up in London, U.K. & Moved to Queens, New York, for High School
Ella Mai was born Ella Mai Howell on November 3, 1994, in London, U.K. Her father is Irish and her mother is Jamaican, but they split up when Mai was young and she was raised mostly by her mother, she told the Guardian. Mai has an older brother named Miles and she had a very active childhood. She told the publication that on Saturdays, she’d play soccer and on Sundays, she’d go to the Pentecostal church, where her grandmother was a minister.
When Mai was 12 years old, she moved from London to Queens, New York, which turned out to be a pivotal change for the young girl. The family moved because her mother got a teaching job in the States, but Mai has spoken about how difficult the shift was for her. “Being 12 and moving to a new country where I had a few family members but didn’t really know anyone was tough, she told Forbes. “It taught me a lot about adaptation and really helped me realize what my strengths and weaknesses were socially.”
In fact, she told the Guardian that her English accent made her stand out in high school and not in a positive way. Although music and singing had been a huge part of her life until then, she put them on the back burner in the U.S. and spent her high school years in New York playing soccer instead.
After graduating from high school at age 17, Mai moved back to the U.K. At that point, she realized that she wanted to focus on music. “I went to university for music and I worked in retail and that was it,” she told NME. “I didn’t have any management or anything and I was just trying to figure it out myself.”
Her career brought her back to the U.S., but she told Complex that her family is still in London as are many of her friends so she still considers that city her home. “I don’t visit as often as I want to and I miss the accessibility to the people I love, from birthdays to engagements — moments where I’d just love to be there,” she shared. “I don’t miss the weather, though. At all! It’s dark, grey and moody in comparison to [Los Angeles], where it is cool and relaxed.”
2. Ella Mai Was Raised Surrounded by Music & Her Mother Always Played Jazz in the House
Mai grew up with a passion for music from a young age, and it’s no surprise that her upbringing had a key role in exposing her to music: the singer was even named after Ella Fitzgerald thanks to her mother’s love of jazz. Mai said her mother always had jazz playing in their house or her grandmother would listen to Lauryn Hill. “There was a lot of R&B and hip-hop influencing me,” Mai shared with NME. “But there was also the jazz and my grandparents are Jamaican so there was a lot of Reggae and Gospel so it was a bit of everything fused into one.”
Mai’s favorite artists growing up were Hill, Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys, but in addition to her love of music, she developed a love of performing. “I’d perform in all my school plays and always had to be the center of attention,” she told NME. After her move to the U.S. though, she took a step back from the spotlight.
It wasn’t until her high school graduation that she volunteered to sing the national anthem, she told Billboard. She shocked and impressed everyone and that planted the seed of pursuing music once more in her mind. She began writing all the time, songs about love and her thoughts in general.
“I’ve always been singing,” she told Nylon. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve been singing. I used to go to a performing arts school when I was little, but I only started songwriting about a year and a half ago, so that’s something that’s quite new to me.” She said when she started writing songs, that’s when everything really clicked and she realized it was what she wanted to do.
3. Ella Mai Started Focusing Seriously on Music After High School & Was Discovered by Mustard
Mai was noticed by Mustard on Instagram after she posted some of her covers of hit songs. He reached out to her and offered to fly her to Los Angeles and the rest is history. “I went on his page to make sure it was really him,” Mai told Billboard. “I never would have imagined it would land me where I am today.”
Mai released three EPs, “Time,” “Change,” and “Ready.” According to Billboard, her first EP represented the time period she got over an ex and came on the scene as an artist. Her second EP, “Change,” documented her life moving to Los Angeles for her career and finding a new relationship. Her third EP was about the ups and downs of her new relationship and beginning to go on tour.
Mai released her first full-length album, “Elle Mai,” in 2018. She followed it up with “Heart on My Sleeve” in 2022. Love is a key theme in many of Mai’s songs, and she told Okayplayer, “I’m a lover girl… I feel like people think it’s cool to be toxic and do people wrong – I’m the complete other side of that. I love, love… My favorite thing to do is make a love song.”
Mai has received a few nominations for Grammy Awards and won one, for Best R&B Song with “Boo’d Up” in 2019. The song was also nominated for Song of the Year. She received a nomination for Best R&B Album in 2020 for her self-titled album and in 2023, received her fourth Grammy nomination for Best Traditional R&B Performance with “Keeps on Fallin'” featuring Babyface.
Mai has since shared that winning her Grammy is “one of the things I am most proud of” but as she’s gotten older, she has valued more being told by people that she’s had an impact on them. “I don’t think there’s anything [better] than being able to go have conversations with people where they’ll tell me I’ve changed their life or that a song has really helped them through something,” she told NME in 2022. “That’s what success means to me.”
4. Ella Mai & Jayson Tatum Have Been Linked Since 2020 But Neither Has Confirmed a Relationship
There isn’t much public information about Tatum and Mai’s relationship and the two are not Instagram official at this point. The first time they were reportedly spotted together was in 2019 when Tatum was seen at one of Mai’s concerts just hours after a Celtics game. “That time Jayson Tatum flew from Boston to Baltimore hours after his game to see Ella Mai ?,” someone wrote in a now-deleted post on Twitter with video footage.
In October 2020, SideAction reported that fans had noticed one of Mai’s Instagram Lives appeared to be filmed from Tatum’s bedroom. Tatum and Mai were then spotted together in July 2022 at Michael Rubin’s Fourth of July White Party in the Hamptons. A video of the event showed Tatum and Mai walking in together all smiles.
A few days later, SideAction reported that the two were seen together at Travis Scott’s Coney Island concert. The Shade Room also posted a video of the two in Coney Island.
5. Ella Mai Lives in Los Angeles With Her French Bulldog & Said She Loves Learning & Trying New Things
Mai currently lives in Los Angeles and has a French bulldog named Thierry. According to the Guardian, her dog is named after retired soccer star Thierry Henry, as the singer is a fan of Arsenal Football Club. She loves to read and told the publication that her favorite book is Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Outliers.”
She said she began working out during the pandemic and now enjoys working out, and also plays tennis. “It was something I always enjoyed — I always watched tennis, but I never played,” she told Complex. She also said that beyond music, she’s always interested in other pursuits. “Anything outside of music I’m very much open-minded to,” she spilled. “I love to learn and try new things. It’s so fun to me.”