Trevor Jackson wants to heal heartbreak out loud with you
TheGrio...
In this exclusive interview, Trevor Jackson opens up about how healing from a breakup after a six-year relationship led to this era.
As Trevor Jackson was in rehearsal this week for the “Healing Out Loud” tour, which kicks off Thursday in Detroit, he found himself fighting back tears. Not because of the heartbreak he’s performing, but because of how far he’s come since it first occurred three years ago.
“I was down y’all, I was down bad when this was going down,” the 29-year-old actor and R&B star told theGrio during an interview in between rehearsals.
He’s referring to a six-year relationship between himself and a woman he has never publicly identified that ended in 2023. Without divulging much of the details, he expressed how the split reshaped both his life and his music and ultimately led to his 2025 album “I Love You, Goodbye,”—a project he didn’t set out to make, but one he says he needed.
“I have other albums that are finished that I could have easily put out, but I couldn’t move on as a human until this was released,” he explained.
The 19-track album takes its title from the last words his ex-girlfriend said to him. What follows is a rush of bluesy emotions he channeled into writing—quickly and almost involuntarily—as he tried to get through each day processing that breakup. At the same time, he was recovering from a torn Achilles tendon, an injury he suffered during a family basketball game just after Christmas in 2023.
Now, on the other side of that physical and emotional pain, Jackson is boldly stepping into a new chapter of serious momentum. Between a major role on “Grey’s Anatomy” and his growing music career, he’s balancing more than ever. As he prepares to embark on this 10-city tour, he’s ready to give his journey and his art over to the fans.
“What I made and what I went through belongs to somebody out there that is going through it, or that’s going to go through it,” he noted.
Before this moment took shape, Jackson’s résumé already stretched from Broadway to primetime. He first stepped onto the stage as young Simba in “The Lion King” before becoming a fan favorite on “Grown-ish” and starring in films like “Superfly,” “Burning Sands,” and more. Much of that work has been powered by a tight-knit, family-run operation behind the scenes. His mother has served as his manager while his older brother produces his music.
“Anything you’ve seen me do, they have been a part of it,” the “Grown-ish” alum said of his family.
While that foundation remains, his relationship to his work is evolving.
“I always talked about some periods of my life, I felt like I was two people… And I feel like these two people are converging,” said the actor.
The two people he’s felt pulled between are the version of himself living the version of the life he wants, creating the art he hopes to, he said, and the current form. That convergence is manifesting in how he’s showing up with more intention, more gratitude, and less urgency about what’s next. In the studio, that meant abandoning structure. He followed instinct, often recording to the first beat that resonated and keeping raw takes intact. In the process, he found himself confronting aspects of the relationship he was healing from that he didn’t anticipate.
“I had to confront the good times,” he recalled, adding, “I had to confront my mistakes.”
That emotional range carries itself across the sound. While one track might lean into stripped-down piano and vocals, another expands into fuller, more traditional R&B, while another pulls from folk and pop influences. The throughline, rather than genre, is more about feeling.
“Emotions are all over the place. Nobody ever feels the same way all throughout the day,” the R&B singer said with a chuckle.
Visually, Jackson is just as expansive. With tailored lace collars, the project’s aesthetic draws on a Prince-like theatricality meets regency-era romanticism—an intentional nod to a time when poetry was one of the highest forms of expression. Citing influences ranging from Edgar Allan Poe to Frederick Douglass, he is imagining himself as part of that lineage of storytellers.
“I wanted to tell a story… like filmmakers do, just in my cool little way,” he added.
Onstage, that storytelling continues; however, he’s less focused on the spectacle and more on the emotional experience of those who come out.
He said, “I want people to… be free and feel safe enough to express themselves and sing the songs and cry.”
That full-circle moment—watching audiences connect to something born from his lowest point—is still catching up to him.
“To go from feeling that much despair, to being on a stage and having people sing lyrics with smiles on their faces… that’s what life is about,” he said.
Looking back, it’s hard for the multi-hyphenate to even believe that processing that pain has led to this point. It’s as though the pain and what healing from it forced him to confront and create, finally bringing those two people he mentioned earlier together.
“I would go through it a billion times again to be where I’m at now,” he admits with a wide grin.
If there’s any lesson he’s holding onto, it’s the beauty in how uncertain the next day is. You truly have little indication of what any given situation will ultimately become.
“The beautiful part about life is the discovery. If we knew what it was already, there’d be no point in living it.”