Jesy Nelson has revealed she felt “miserable” and “trapped” in Little Mix.
The 30-year-old quit the popular girl band late last year, and is now launching her own solo career.
The singer spoke on the latest episode of Fearne Cotton’s podcast Happy Place podcast, where she admitted being compared to her bandmates Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall “every single day” was “draining”.
Jesy said: “I’ll never sit and lie and be like, oh, I’m so happy now, I don’t have any insecurities as that’s an absolute lie. I still have my insecurities, I still have my struggles.”
“I guess the thing that I’m better with now, is that I see little things now when I do a music video, I’m not looking on the camera and thinking, oh my God, I don’t look as skinny as Jade, Anne and Perrie. And that’s what I did every single day.”
“Also, it wasn’t nice for Jade, Anne and Perrie to be around when I was so down, they we’re living their dream and I wasn’t. I felt very miserable and trapped and I knew that, that wasn’t right.”
“To be compared every single day to three other girls was draining, and I couldn’t deal with that anymore,” she added.
On December 14 last year, Jesy announced in an emotional statement that she would be leaving Little Mix as being in the band was “taking a toll on her mental health”.
Speaking to Fearne, the songstress said: “I think a lot of people have misconstrued what I meant in my statement, they’re like oh, so now she’s going solo. I never said in my statement, I’m coming out of the music industry, I’m not going to do music anymore…”
“I said, I’m just going to start a new chapter of my life, I just want to make myself happy. I don’t know what that’s going to be, but I need to look after myself now, make myself feel better again.”
Jesy revealed last year’s lockdown helped her come up with the decision to leave the group, explaining: “We never had time to just be by ourselves and the only time I had that was lockdown, and for me, that was when I realized: Okay, this isn’t for me anymore.”
“And it sounds crazy, because obviously we were in a pandemic and there was awful things going on, but it was the first time I’d felt true peace and happiness, that I hadn’t felt in such a long time.”
Jesy’s debut single Boyz, featuring Nicki Minaj, is set for release this Friday, October 8.
Speaking about her solo work, Jesy said: “It was just really nice, writing songs about experiences that I’ve been through. It is like therapy and you get the best songs out of whatever you’re feeling.”
“And I was going through a breakup at the time as well so when I was in the studio, I’ve honestly wrote some really bloody good songs because of it. So yeah. But it really is like therapy and I love it so much.”
“This is my true authentic self. This is me, this is the music I’ve genuinely always wanted to make. It’s just nice that people will get to see the real me.”
