Leigh-Anne Pinnock has praised “incredible” Meghan Markle after “brave” Oprah interview.
The Little Mix star, who is expecting her first child with fiancé Andre Gray, branded the Duchess “amazing” for speaking out about the racism she allegedly experienced during her time as a senior working royal.
The singer, who will open up about her experience with racism in the music industry in an upcoming BBC Three documentary, told the MailOnline: “I mean what a brave and an incredible thing to do to speak out like that. I think she’s amazing.”
“It just shows racism doesn’t exclude you. If you’re a black person it’s going to affect you at some point in your life.”
“I think she really showed that and I hope people could see that it doesn’t matter how much money you have or how successful you are it still affects you,” she added.
Leigh-Anne rose to fame in 2011 after she won the X Factor with Little Mix, alongside band mates Jade Thirlwall, Perrie Edwards and Jesy Nelson.
The 29-year-old’s documentary Race, Pop & Power airs on BBC Three on Thursday, May 13 at 9pm.
In the documentary, Leigh-Anne will look back on her ten-year career as part of one of the biggest bands of the world, and how she felt “invisible” at times.
She said: “The confidence I have in myself for so many years was ripped away from me, just not feeling good enough and not knowing why.”
“Why do I feel like this? Why do I have these feelings? Why did I feel invisible? It makes me think more into the fact there are so few dark skinned females right now in the music industry.”
“What is it about dark skinned women that they don’t deem as marketable? It really does make me think if I was some shades darker would I be sat here right now? I don’t know.”
“With pop music from whatever I’ve experienced it is such a white world and I want to see more diversity and if you think music is led by hip hop and R&B, you can’t just take bits of the culture and not actually give people these opportunities, it doesn’t even make sense.”
“When I’m seeing that and going into work and it is predominately white I’m like we’re taking influence from black music so why am I not around black people?”
“I can speak for pop music and the representation is nowhere near where it should be,” the mum-to-be added.
“It’s so important for me that I’m seeing diversity on the video shoots, on the photo shoots, at my workplace and it’s something I’ve been drilling since the doc.”
I don’t feel like we’re there yet, which is quite sad but I feel like we’re on our way and there are initiatives that Sony have started. I hope to see a change because it’s not fair and not the way it should be and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
“I’m not going to sit back and not say anything like I did for so many years, that was my normal and it’s not normal and something has to change so I’m going to keep going until I see that change,” Leigh-Anne vowed.
On this week’s episode of the Gosscast, Goss.ie Founder and CEO Alexandra Ryan joins Goss.ie Editor Kendra Becker to chat through the biggest stories of the week.
The girls chat about the “disappointing” Line of Duty finale, Maura Higgins’ split from Chris Taylor, and the major Hollywood movie being filmed in Wicklow right now.Â
You can also listen to the podcast on all usual platforms, including  Spotify and iTunes.
