LITTLE Mix were inseparable for almost a decade, becoming the biggest girl group since Spice Girls.
As with their 90s counterparts, their sister-like bond — which they formed after being put together on The X Factor — helped them win the show in 2011 and go on to sell millions of records, land five UK No1s and perform sold-out arena shows.
But singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock has now revealed all three members of Little Mix secretly sought therapy after Jesy Nelson’s decision to quit the group turned into a PR nightmare, with bitter online fan wars and countless reports of infighting.
The singer, 32, says Jesy’s abrupt exit from the band in December 2020 left her, Perrie Edwards, 30, and Jade Thirlwall, 30, “traumatised” and needing counselling.
In her upcoming autobiography Believe, out tomorrow, Leigh-Anne writes: “It was a complex and painful thing to come to terms with. We all felt it, that pain and sadness. The whole thing felt like a weird break-up, and I wasn’t prepared for it.
“I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of those emotions. The whole thing was abrupt and sad and then it was messy, which made it even more painful.”
At the time, Jesy, 32, cited battles with her mental health and struggles with the pressures of fame as her reason for leaving.
She said: “The truth is recently 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.
“There comes a time in life when we need to reinvest in taking care of ourselves rather than focusing on making other people happy.”
A month prior to Jesy’s exit, the singer sparked concern after pulling out of the live final of the group’s BBC talent contest Little Mix: The Search and the Europe Music Awards, where they were due to perform.
Outright ugly
Publicly, the girls poured cold water on mass speculation that things were at breaking point.
But reports claimed Jade, Leigh-Anne and Perrie found out about Jesy’s choice to call it quits via their lawyers and were all subsequently blocked by Jesy on social media.
The band are on hiatus, a decision they took in May 2022 and Leigh-Anne is now forging a solo career.
Finally lifting the lid on the turbulent time, Leigh-Anne candidly writes: “I’ve been to therapy during the course of my career. When we decided to pause Little Mix, I felt compelled to go back. We all did.
“In fact, it happened a little earlier than our hiatus. We were a family, the four of us were like sisters, and we had been that way since we were teenagers, so it’s not an over-exaggeration to say that losing a member was a traumatic experience.
“When you have felt so much love and support with another person over such a long time and then that suddenly disappears you never fully get to understand why it hurts.”
Despite feeling sore by how things panned out, the Shout Out To My Ex singer says one to one sessions helped her come to terms with Jesy leaving them.
Leigh-Anne continues: “Therapy helped me, helped all of us, process what had happened and manage the emotions that came with it. All of that messiness is now so far behind me that it’s not even worth commenting on. We have moved forwards into something even brighter and stronger.”
She uses the book to go on to speak of her pride at what she, Perrie and Jade accomplished as a trio, which included a sell-out 25- date arena tour and becoming the first girl group ever to win British Group at the 2021 Brit Awards.
“The experience pulled the three of us even closer together,” she writes.
“We clung to each other in those last months. Jade and Perrie were the only people who really knew what it felt like, who knew what we had been through. They just got it.”
In the months that followed Jesy’s departure rumours were rife about infighting within the band, with things turning outright ugly in October 2021 as the former Essex barmaid launched her solo career.
Despite openly speaking about her love of R&B throughout her career, Jesy’s decision to change her sound to R&B for her debut single Boyz, which featured Nicki Minaj, and wearing braided hair in the accompanying music video sparked accusations of “black fishing”.
Jesy has always denied the charge, insisting the concept was born out of her love for the genre, though she apologised for any hurt she unintentionally caused.
Leaked Instagram messages between Leigh-Anne and influencer NoHun appeared online seemingly showing Leigh-Anne brand Jesy a “black fish”.
The term is used to insinuate some-one has changed their appearance to imitate features from black cultures.
The message read: “Do a video about her being a black fish instead. She blocked us. Cut us off. Horrible person.”
To promote the single Jesy and Nicki appeared on an Instagram live session in which the rapper brought up the criticism and took aim at Leigh-Anne as Jesy sat there awkwardly.
Nicki raged: “Take them text messages and shove it up your f***Ing ass, because when you do clown s*** I got to treat you and talk to you like you a clown.
“If you was in this woman’s group and you ain’t talk about this s*** for ten years and as soon as you see she got a video coming out with Nicki Minaj and Puffy (P Diddy), now you sending text messages.
“Stop trying to hurt people and kill people’s lives and careers, this is the way people feed their families. If you want a solo career, baby girl, just say that. Only jealous people do things like this.”
Almost instantly social media exploded with fans on both sides of the debate going to war with one another.
In her new memoir, Leigh-Anne says she was left with crippling anxiety as she watched the drama play out while she recovered from a caesarean section, having had twins with her now-husband, footballer Andre Gray, 32, in August 2021.
She brands the ordeal “one of the most difficult moments in my career”.
The mum-of-two writes: “Soon after giving birth to my twins I found myself caught up in a horrific online row. It was one of the most difficult moments I can remember throughout my career.
“I was a new mum dealing with the mental and physical aftermath of pregnancy and birth, flooded with hormones and emotion, and severely sleep deprived, and on top of all that I also had to deal with this.”
She adds that she has now “made peace with what happened and everything that was said about me” — crediting her newborns for giving her a new outlook on life.
Leigh-Anne continues: “In the moment it felt truly awful. As much as I tried to avoid Instagram and Twitter I kept seeing the comments and the debates that were taking place on every platform.
“Even when I put my phone away and refused to look at it there was still this underlying anxiety about what was happening online.
“But then something so beautiful pulled me out of that horrible spiral — one of my baby’s smiled at me for the first time.
“How could I care about what people were saying about me on Instagram when something so rare and magical as my baby’s smile existed in the world? It didn’t matter. None of it did.”
Almost as if she is giving an olive branch to her once best friend and bandmate, Leigh-Anne later adds poignantly she still cherishes the time Little Mix had as a foursome.
They first found each other in 2011 after all four girls auditioned for Simon Cowell’s The X Factor as solo artists. Long before things turned sour, 12.9million viewers watched them crowned winners of the competition — becoming the first group to ever win the show.
She writes: “Now, I can see that none of what has happened since the split takes anything away from what we had. That love we felt for each other was valid and real, no matter what came afterwards.
“Those memories I hold so dear are true. Those experiences helped build me into the person I am today and none of that will ever be erased.”
Speaking to The Sun in April this year, Jesy admitted she still had not been in touch with the girls.
The Sun also understands that she had not been made aware of the contents of Leigh-Anne’s book prior to its release tomorrow.
But similar to her ex-bandmate’s musings in her new memoir, it echoes those said by Jesy during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show amid the fallout in 2021.
Jesy said: “We’re not talking any more. It is sad but honestly there is no bad blood from my side, and I still love them to pieces and genuinely wish them all the best.
“I loved my time with them, and we’ve got the most incredible memories together but it’s just one of those things which needs to take time, so who knows.”