Jesy Nelson “struggled” with the pressures of fame at the start of Little Mix’s career.
The 27-year-old singer was catapulted to stardom when she won UK talent show The X Factor alongside her band mates Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Jade Thirlwall, but has said she spent years feeling “miserable” because she believed people were spreading negative comments about her.
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She said: “When I first started out, I struggled.
“I never thought I would get over thinking people thought certain things about me.
“I still get upset when I talk about it. I’ll never get those years back. I was so miserable, I should have been enjoying my [bleep] life.”
The Power hitmakers are gearing up to release their new album LM5, which is all about female empowerment and embracing who you are, and Jesy says the message is all the more important after battling her own insecurities for so long.
She added to ASOS magazine: “This is why we feel so passionate about what we’re saying on this album.”
Jesy’s confession comes after band mate Jade recently spoke about their new music, stating they penned a track called Woman’s World which touches on the #MeToo movement, after they were left “angry” by what was happening, and felt the need to become more “ballsy” with their lyrics.
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The Shout Out to My Ex singer told Noisey: “So we wrote this song when the whole #MeToo movement was coming about. You know … I was so angry about what was going on.
“It was important to write it with Jez, [a songwriter] who’s a man. It holds an important message.
“We haven’t written anything that’s too controversial before, and now we’re starting to write things that are slightly more honest. We want to be a bit more ballsy and say ‘yeah, it is hard to be a woman’.”
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