Joss Stone has revealed she has forgiven the men who plotted to kidnap and murder her – as she prepares to move back to Britain with her young family after years living in the US.
The soul star, 38, who is married to Cody DaLuz, a former Marine, with whom she shares four kids, was the target of a chilling conspiracy in 2011 when two men were caught near her Devon home carrying knives, hammers, rope and a body bag.
They planned to rob and kill the then-24-year-old singer before being intercepted by police and later convicted of conspiracy to murder and robbery.
Now, more than a decade later, Joss says she no longer lives in fear – and even hopes her would-be killers have found peace.
She said: ‘It’s traumatic because, of course, that is a horrible thing to have happened – but it didn’t happen. The idea that somebody would want to chop you up into small pieces and put you in a little bag is a bit jarring…
‘But luckily, they didn’t get there. They didn’t hurt me.’
Joss Stone has revealed she has forgiven the men who plotted to kidnap and murder her – as she prepares to move back to Britain with her young family after years living in the US (pictured earlier this year)
The soul star, 38, was the target of a chilling conspiracy in 2011 when two men were caught near her Devon home carrying knives, hammers, rope and a body bag (pictured in 2023)
Soon afterwards, Joss left Britain and began a new life in America, living first in New Jersey and later in Nashville with her American husband Cody DaLuz, a former Marine (Cody and Joss pictured in 2023)
Speaking on the Nicky Byrne HQ podcast, she continued: ‘I just hope that they are okay and healed. It’s a weird feeling because it’s hard to not feel sorry for people that are in that space. It’s also hard to not feel sorry for the mother of those people.’
Joss admitted she longs for an explanation from the men who once plotted to end her life. ‘I still don’t even know if they were pissed off at me or if they were hired by someone that was pissed off at me. Who knows?…
‘I don’t have a lot of answers. I hope they didn’t try and do that because they didn’t like a song or something, but I’ll never know. I would like to ask… It’s one of those niggling things. I’m just like, can we just have a cup of tea? Can we just talk about it?’
The singer – who first shot to fame as a teenager with her multi-platinum album The Soul Sessions – said she felt ‘looked after’ by fate when police foiled the plot. ‘I feel like something’s watching over me. I feel very looked after in that scenario,’ she explained.
But the ordeal shattered her sense of safety at home. ‘That did make me feel really uncomfortable in that house as well, which is the house I grew up in,’ she recalled. ‘I woke up one morning in that place and I said to Cody, ‘I don’t want to come back here ever.’ And we never did.’
Soon afterwards, Joss left Britain and began a new life in America, living first in New Jersey and later in Nashville with her American husband Cody.
The couple now share four children under four – Violet, Shackleton, Bear, and their new baby born this summer – and Joss admits motherhood has made her more protective.
‘Now I’m very wary of everything because I’ve got children. So I always lock the doors, whereas before I never did,’ she said.
Speaking on the Nicky Byrne HQ podcast, she continued: ‘I just hope that they are okay and healed. It’s a weird feeling because it’s hard to not feel sorry for people that are in that space. It’s also hard to not feel sorry for the mother of those people’
But after more than a decade in the US, the star is returning to her roots. She confirmed she is currently packing up her home in Tennessee to move back to England so her eldest daughter can start school – and so she can once again be close to her family.
‘I have my babies now and my eldest baby needs to go to school,’ she said. ‘Also now there’s four of them, I really need my mum! You’ve got to have a village to bring kids up. Can’t do it on your own.’
She admitted that while life in the States has been kind, it has never matched the closeness of Devon. ‘We have our lovely neighbours and that’s great, but it doesn’t make up for my mum and my sister,’ she said.
‘We like to have a pedestrian vibe, to walk everywhere, and to live near enough to each other that you can pop over for a glass of wine. It’s a different vibe.’
Despite the ordeal that once drove her away, Joss insists she is no longer living in fear – and has chosen forgiveness as she looks to the future.
‘You can laugh at it, you can cry at it, you can be angry about it, you can feel empathy,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s just the universe’s way of saying, look after yourself, look after your babies, look after your bubble. And that’s it. There’s going to be crazies.’
Pictured in November 2023
