While the members of Little Mix have seemingly made peace with member Jesy Nelson’s departure, don’t expect a reunion anytime soon.
In an episode of Jamie Laing’s “Great Company” podcast that dropped on Tuesday, June 9, Little Mix member Perrie Edwards — who has recently been releasing solo music under the mononym Perrie — opened up about the drama behind the scenes of the British girl pop group.
Though Edwards didn’t go too much into detail, she explained that at a certain point, Nelson became too difficult to work with.
“I’m not saying she’s this f**king monster, and everything was her fault,” Edwards said, “but take some accountability for your actions and realize that you were difficult, you had difficult moments, granted there was reasons for those moments, but you can only pick somebody up so many fucking times before you start losing track of your own sanity.”
Little Mix first formed on the British talent competition The X Factor back in 2011. The four women — Edwards, Nelson, Jade Thirlwall, and Leigh-Anne Pinnock — originally auditioned as soloists before Kelly Rowland, who was a judge on the show, assembled them as a group. The quartet went on to release six albums before Nelson departed the group in 2020, citing mental health struggles.
This past February, Nelson released the Prime Video docuseries Life After Little Mix, in which she “no one cared” about her feelings when she tried to explain her struggles with body dysmorphia and mental health. Edwards claims this wasn’t the case, and that while she wanted to work things out with her, seeing the docuseries changed her mind.
“So then to sit there in interviews and be like ‘I wasn’t supported’… you were though,” Edwards said. “[Part of me wanted to rekindle the friendship] until the documentary, and then part of me withdrew again.”
Though Edwards and Nelson may not be close anymore, Edwards maintains that she always has love for her former bandmate. Elsewhere in the podcast, Edwards claimed that Nelson’s twin daughters’ spinal muscular atrophy documentary “broke” her.
“You wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It’s literally wild,” Edwards said. “I don’t want to see her hurt and I don’t want to see any of that. It’s heartbreaking.”
