Jesy Nelson: why she left Little Mix, and what’s next

It’s been five months since Jesy Nelson quit Little Mix. The singer’s close friend Felicity Hayward sat down with her to discuss the real reason she left, what’s next, and why she isn’t looking back

“After nine years together Jesy has made the decision to leave Little Mix,” a statement from the remaining three band members read. “This is an incredibly sad time for all of us but we are fully supportive of Jesy.” At the same time, Jesy, 29, took to her Instagram account to explain her reasons to more than 7 million followers. “The truth is being in the band has really taken a toll on my mental health. I find the constant pressure of being in a girl group and living up to expectations very hard.”

It’s something she had previously opened up about in her BBC Three documentary Odd One Out, in which she revealed that bullying on social media about her appearance and weight had led her to take an overdose. She added, “There comes a time in life when we need to reinvest in taking care of ourselves rather than [focusing] on making other people happy, and I feel like now is the time to begin that process.” And just like that, she and one of the most successful UK girl groups in history parted ways.

While Perrie Edwards, Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock continued as a three-piece, confirming a 2022 tour, Jesy took some time to focus on herself. Apart from the occasional Instagram post showing off a more relaxed image, new curly hair and some teasers of herself in the recording studio, we’ve barely heard anything from her. Until now.

It’s a sunny day in early March when she arrives for our cover shoot in east London, all big hair and smiles. From the off, there’s a remarkable difference in the singer to when we last shot her, 13 months ago, with her former bandmates. She’s always been friendly and super-polite, but at times last year, she seemed a little distant. Today, she’s happy, confident and excited to tell the Cosmopolitan team about her plans for the future. Even at 5pm, when she sits down to be interviewed by one of her best friends, model Felicity Hayward, after eight hours of being photographed, there’s no knocking her mood.

“Hellooo, you sexy mama,” she sings as she sits down for the Zoom call with Felicity. She’s wearing a denim jacket, a white bralette, cargo pants and a chunky gold necklace.

“Hello, sexy!” shouts Felicity in delight. “I put perfume on for you this morning.”

“Oh, you smell great,” laughs Jesy. “I don’t have any trousers on though, just this top,” deadpans Felicity. “You know, Zoom life.”

Felicity, 32, a body positivity campaigner and founder of the social-media campaign #SelfLoveBringsBeauty, is one of Jesy’s closest friends. They met on the set of Little Mix’s 2018 music video Strip, and it’s clear Felicity has been a huge support to Jesy ever since.

There’s a lot of excitable talk about last summer, when the pair made the most of London being empty due to the pandemic, and would regularly ride around the city on bikes with a boombox playing old-school garage and R&B. “I loved that so much,” smiles Jesy. “They’re some of my happiest memories, which sounds mental because we were in a pandemic. But it was being free and just being able to not give a shit. I was just having the time of my life.”

As she knows Jesy so well, we got Felicity to ask her everything, from why she left Little Mix to what she’s been up to musically. While Jesy didn’t want to comment on her current relationship with the girls, she opened up about what it was really like being compared to them for nearly 10 years of her life…

AT 5.01PM ON MONDAY 14TH DECEMBER 2020, THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT LITTLE MIX FANS HAD BEEN DREADING FOR MONTHS CAME: Jesy NELSON WAS LEAVING THE BAND.

FELICITY: How was today? Did you look sexy?

JESY: Oh yeah!

FELICITY: What did you wear? JESY: Now I’m on my own, I can genuinely wear what I want to wear. Before, I was wearing what I thought

I should wear, because I was too frightened to wear certain things in case I looked bigger than the others. I’d wear corsets and shit like that to make myself look the size they were. Now, I’m not looking at the screen thinking, “Oh my god, I don’t look as good as them.” I feel free.

FELICITY: I’ve seen your pictures on Instagram since you left and I feel like you’ve come out of your shell. You’ve been wearing boys’ stuff, varsity jackets and big cargo pants. You look sexy as hell. And it’s nice to see you being yourself. How confident were you, on a scale of one to 10, before you made the band, during the band and also now?

JESY: This is genuinely not an exaggeration – before I got into the band, I would have said on a scale of [one to] 10, I was a nine or 10. I had no insecurities, I never looked at myself and said,“I don’t like that.” When I got in the band, my confidence was zero. Once I got older and I learned not to care as much, I probably got to a 4.5. And then I’d say now I’ve left,

I’m a solid 8.5.

FELICITY: That’s a lot.

JESY: It’s the weirdest feeling for me. I feel like I’m going to get upset. [Jesy gets tearful.] I didn’t know that I could be this happy. I thought when I was in the group that it was just normal to feel that way. And because I’d felt like that for 10 years, I just thought, “This is life.” Since I’ve left, I feel free. I don’t wake up with anxiety, thinking, “I’ve got to do a music video today, I need to starve myself.” Or, “I need to go on an extreme diet so I can look like the other three.” That was consuming me. I constantly compared myself to the others. Of course, a lot of that was in my head, but a lot of it was past trauma. Even recently, I was still getting compared to them. It’s horrible when you already don’t like something about yourself to then have thousands of people point it out. Now I feel like me. When I look back [at my time] in the band, I genuinely wasn’t me. I can’t believe how miserable I was.

FELICITY: I remember seeing you on the Strip set and thinking, “You’re so gorgeous, and you’ve been through so much bullying and trolling since the beginning of your career.” It’s really hard to see. I’m a

plus-size woman – I get abuse because I am genuinely classed as fat. The UK average is a size 16, so you are way below that, and you were getting trolled for being big. Do you think you would have been treated the same way if you’d gone through as a solo artist on The X Factor [in 2011]?

JESY: No, I really don’t. The X Factor was so used to having typical girl groups that were very skinny, and looked how girl groups are “supposed” to look. We were these little scruffbags who just wore what we wanted, and everyone was like, “This is different.” I was bigger than the other three, and there’s never really been that in a girl group. I was classed as the obese, fat one.

FELICITY: It’s crazy, because you were a teenager. You’ve got young girls looking at all these different women and thinking, “Why’s she being called that?” and “If she’s being called that, what does that make me?”

JESY: Exactly. The first five years of Little Mix, I was always on the front cover of [weekly] magazines. You never see men on the cover of magazines being scrutinised for what they look like. It’s always shaming women. What are we supposed to look like? What is perfect? To me, perfect is someone who embraces their flaws and is 100% themselves and comfortable with that.

FELICITY: Why was it important for your mental health to leave the band?

JESY: The last music video we did [Sweet Melody] was the breaking point. We’d been in lockdown, and [that had been] the first time I could have a break and be at home around people that I love. It was the happiest I’d ever felt, and I didn’t realise that until I went back to work. I immediately became a different person. I had anxiety. Whenever we had a music video, I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to try and lose weight. I have a fear of looking back on the camera. If I don’t like what I see, I find it so hard to be in front of the camera and feel amazing and perform.

I’d been in lockdown, and I’d put on a bit of weight but I didn’t care. And [then] they said, “You’ve got a music video in a couple of weeks,” and I just panicked. I went on this extreme diet, with bloody shakes, and tried to eat as little as possible. On the day of the Sweet Melody video I had a panic attack on set because I didn’t look how I wanted to look and I found it so hard to just be happy and enjoy myself. I looked at the other three and they were having the time of their life.

I get so jealous, because I want to feel like that and enjoy it, because music is my passion. To have this dream and not be enjoying it because of what I look like, I knew wasn’t normal.

There’s a scene in Sweet Melody I’m not in, because that’s when I had a panic attack and broke down. I was like, “I just want to go home.” I was sobbing in the dressing room. Someone really close to me said, “This has got to stop. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You’re going to end up where you were before.”

FELICITY: Yeah…

JESY: For me, that was the pinnacle point. I was like, “I need to start taking care of myself now, because this isn’t healthy.” It wasn’t nice for the other three to be around someone who didn’t want to be there. So I took a break. I went through a really dark time after the music video. My mum said, “This has got to stop now. I have seen you suffer too much. This has been 10 years of your life.”

For so long, I worried about others and letting people down. The only person I should have been trying to make happy was myself, and I wasn’t doing that. I needed to do it for my mental health, because I know I would have ended up back where I was five years ago, and that’s scary.

FELICITY: Now is such an exciting time, because you’ve got this whole new chapter to be unapologetically yourself. Keep on that 8.5 and get it up to a 10! Plus, I’ve seen you’re in the studio – what are you working on now?

JESY: Music is my life. It’s so powerful for me. I’m in the studio just having fun. I loved the music I made with Little Mix, but it wasn’t the kind of music I listen to. It just feels so nice to be making music that I love. I don’t know when I’m

“I CONSTANTLY compared myself TO THE OTHER THREE”

going to bring it out. I feel really content and happy. It’s the weirdest, best feeling in the world.

FELICITY: From that happiness, I know there’s going to be some summer anthems! Can you give me three words that represented you in Little Mix and three that represent you now?

JESY: In Little Mix: honest, hardworking, sad.

FELICITY: And now?

JESY: Honest, content, free.

FELICITY: What did you do the day after you left Little Mix?

JESY: I was at home with my family, taking everything in on the news. Everyone was talking about it on Lorraine. When I put up my statement, I turned off my comments because I was shitting myself – I thought, “I’m going to get so much backlash for this.” My sister rang me and said, “I think you should turn on your comments. Everything I’ve seen is really positive.” I turned on my comments and just sat in bed and cried because I was overwhelmed with how lovely everyone was being.

It was a shock to me. I couldn’t get over how much people were supporting me and understood.

I was on a weird rollercoaster of emotions. I felt sad, because it was 10 years of my life that I was giving up. I felt scared, like, “Shit, what’s going to happen now?” At the same time, I had glimpses of happiness, of, “I can do what I want now.” I don’t feel trapped. If I wanted to go to the fucking shop today and eat 10 bars of Dairy Milk, I could, because I don’t have to worry about being on a diet any more. I don’t have to worry about having a music video or doing an interview wearing an outfit that I don’t want to wear because three other girls want to wear it.

FELICITY: And then you feel like you’re being difficult?

JESY: Yeah. And it’s horrible.

I felt like I was coming into an environment, sometimes, where people didn’t want me to be there. Sometimes I wasn’t a positive energy because I was so down. When you feel that way anyway, to be around certain people on my team that didn’t want me there was hard.

FELICITY: Did anyone surprising reach out to you when you quit?

JESY: So many people. Liam Payne from One Direction. And Rag’n’Bone Man messaged me and said, “I just watched your documentary and it’s helped me so much. I think you’re brilliant.” I didn’t see it as brave, but people were saying, “Do you know how brave you are for doing that? You’re going to show so many girls that they can do whatever they want and if they want to make themselves happy, they can.” You’ve got to have faith that it’s going to be alright and not let fear get in the way.

FELICITY: I’m really excited for you. I don’t think you realise how loved you are. Would you ever do another documentary? You were so good on it.

JESY: I am in talks about doing another about something that’s really close to me personally. It’s nothing to do with what I’ve been through, it’s about other people’s journeys. I didn’t expect the response I got from my documentary. I’d absolutely love to do more. If it helps people, then how amazing is that? That we get to do our jobs and help people get through their worst days just by telling our stories.

FELICITY: I can see you taking over with your music, and we need some kind of fashion line! I will start the fan club. Is there anything else you want to talk about?

JESY: I feel like there have been a few people who don’t understand why I left Little Mix, but am now in the studio making music. A lot of people said, “I thought you came out of the band to focus on your mental health?” I never said when I put out my statement that I was coming out of the band to never be in the public eye or perform again, or do music. I said I was coming out of the band because I genuinely couldn’t deal with the pressure of being in a girl band. For people to think that I would just stop working completely is crazy, because [for] me, working on my mental health is going to the studio, and creating music that I love. That’s what clears my head and makes me happy. It’s good for my mental health.

I couldn’t deal with the pressure of being in the girl group. It wasn’t that I couldn’t deal with the pressure of being in the spotlight. I was constantly compared to three other girls and that mentally drove me to a really dark place, and I couldn’t put myself through that any more. I need to do things that make me happy now, and people might think that’s selfish, but sometimes in life you have to put yourself first, you have to love yourself, and do what makes you happy.

FELICITY: And people that love and support you wouldn’t want you to be in the band and suffer. I think you’re going to do so well on your own.

JESY: Thank you so much – this has been the nicest interview I’ve ever done. You’ve asked me questions that I needed to answer. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else.

“I DIDN’T KNOW I COULD BE this happy”