Daniel Bedingfield releasing '20 years of songs'

The pop star, 44, announced in January that he would return for UK shows to celebrate more than 20 years of his debut album Gotta Get Thru This, which was released in 2002.

The brother of Natasha Bedingfield told Friday's Loose Women why he took a break following a car crash in his home country of New Zealand in 2004, the year his record Second First Impression was released.

Bedingfield said that he was lying in a hospital bed when he won the Brit for British male solo artist in February of that year and subsequently decided to move "somewhere where nobody cares if you're famous - Los Angeles".

He also said: "I did the pop star thing from nine years old till 24, I really was very focused and then I had a car crash and I suddenly realised the first memory when I woke up is I'd like to try something very different.

"I've done farming ... homesteading, like chickens and bees and fruit trees and food, forests and ecological stuff, you know, regenerative stuff."

Bedingfield says he realised "if you keep manifesting what you know, you're just going to keep living what you've had", so he thought he should "rest completely".

"I moved to a wildly different culture, LA, oh, my gosh, and completely reimagined what I wanted for my life," he added.

"And I've just sat with, what do I want this next part of my life to be like? So now I've come to some conclusions. Now, I'm ready to try this again."

Since taking a break, Bedingfield has written songs for artists including X Factor winner Ben Haenow and in 2012 released the EP Stop the Traffik - Secret Fear, referencing the name of the anti-modern slavery campaigners Stop the Traffik.

In 2013, he was announced as a judge of the New Zealand version of The X Factor and three years later appeared in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds at the Dominion Theatre in London.

Bedingfield said he found being in spotlight occasionally "overwhelming" and he had "enough of it" but liked the experience during that time.

He said: "I'm a little bit autistic and I don't like being recognised, many, many, many times a day."

When asked why he is returning now, Bedingfield said: "I know who this person is. I really like him. I've very comfortable inside this beautiful colourful man."

Bedingfield also teased his next album, saying he has "20 years of songs to release" soon.

Speaking about how social media has changed the industry, he admitted there was some negatives but said there has been change as power has been taken "out of the hands of a bunch of males and (put) in the hands of the people".

"The real challenge is not everybody who's incredible at music has a personality that would look good on TikTok, or has the energy to deal with the trolling, which is devastating," Bedingfield added.

"Never was this bad before (when) you had very, very evil press people destroying you.

"And now you have loads of people who have no business talking about anything just saying horrible stuff and I think that's more damaging.

"But I'm sure we can figure out something with technology and some way of screening negative things through AI."

He thinks the negative posts can be flagged and then hidden from the artist, when the technology catches up.

Australian Associated Press