Pod Insights The Louis Theroux Podcast S4 EP2: Jade Thirlwall discusses being ghosted by Harry Styles, clashing with the Gallaghers and coming up on X-Factor About this episode Louis sits down with pop-star and former member of Little Mix, Jade Thirlwall. Jade tells Louis about being ghosted by Harry Styles, clashing with the Gallaghers and coming to the public’s attention on X-Factor.
Warnings: Some strong language and discussions of sensitive themes, including mental health issues and eating disorders. For further information and support, visit https://resources.byspotify.com/
Links/Attachments:
BEAT – UK Eating Disorder Charity
https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/get-help-for-myself/i-need-support-now/helplines/
TV Show: ‘The X Factor’ (2004 – 2021) – ITV
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEY1ejsweY4DgMwOVJeEaBA
Song: ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ - JADE
https://open.spotify.com/album/6Wf3fqCoGcOYah2lTcwyAA
Music Video: ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ - JADE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEc-oy93lf8
TV Show: ‘Boybands Forever’ (2024) – BBC (UK only)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0023h94/boybands-forever
Song: ‘Black Magic’ - Little Mix (2015)
https://open.spotify.com/album/05MKaTFdEtg64AtPmN1nQ7
Song: ‘Power (feat. Stormzy)' - Little Mix (2017)
https://open.spotify.com/album/2lSpirhgGBiKAyl38y8RJs
Podcast: ‘Offstage: Inside The X Factor’ (2024) – BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001vtth
Album: ‘Glory Days’, Little Mix (2016)
https://open.spotify.com/album/2GJLzxAajkFeyDPVH7X4Cs
Song: ‘Shout Out to My Ex’- Little Mix (2016)
https://open.spotify.com/album/4TvPWe1vbrh0hozmCoSFRI
‘Little Mix wins British Group’ – The BRIT Awards (2021)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO-HcY_8iwE
‘LITTLE BELITTLE: Noel Gallagher slams Little Mix’s Best Band Brit Award win saying they’re ‘not in the same league as Oasis’’ – The Sun
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/15217658/noel-gallagher-little-mix-embarrassing-brits-win/
Song: ‘212’ - Azealia Banks feat. Lazy Jay (2011)
https://open.spotify.com/album/1haAnMI7BAQEAzrYjzpTvP
Song: ‘911’ - Lady Gaga (2020)
https://open.spotify.com/track/6qI0MU175Dk2DeoUjlrOpy
Jesy Nelson: ‘Odd One Out’ (2019) – BBC (UK only)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p07lsr4d/jesy-nelson-odd-one-out
Song: ‘Boyz feat. Nicki Minaj’ - Jesy Nelson (2021)
https://open.spotify.com/album/4ShgsMHEHPPLI6Dk16HNF1
TV Show: ‘Later… with Jools Holland’ – BBC (UK only)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00248kc
East is East (1999)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg-zwt-XMFE
Credits:
Producer: Millie Chu
Assistant Producer: Emilia Gill
Production Manager: Francesca Bassett
Music: Miguel D’Oliveira
Audio Mixer: Tom Guest
Video Mixer: Scott Edwards
Shownotes compiled by Immie Webb
Executive Producer: Arron Fellows
A Mindhouse Production for Spotify
www.mindhouse.co.uk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript 12,642 words · 2 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 1212, ready, mic number one.
0:07 Speaker 00 Hello, Louis Theroux here and welcome to my podcast called, surprise, surprise, the Louis Theroux podcast.
0:20 Speaker 00 Today, my guest is singer, songwriter and former member of multi-platinum selling girl band Little Mix, Jade Thelmore. Jade found fame on the British version of The X Factor, the talent show created by Simon Cowell. She first auditioned when she was 15 years old and after applying three times, she was eventually given a place in the aforementioned Little Mix. The group went on to win the series. Since then, Little Mix have released six studio albums and have had 19 UK top 10 singles. They also became the first girl band ever to win a Brit Award for Best British Group.
0:57 Speaker 00 In 2021, one of the band members, Jessie Nelson, left the group and Little Mix continued as a trio until announcing a hiatus in 2022. In July of last year, Jade announced her solo career and released her debut single, Angel Of My Dreams, which you may have heard, which also has an amazing video, which I suggest you check out, very artistic and creative. Her debut album is due out this year. I was curious to speak to Jade, not just as someone who enjoys good pop, but also as someone who is curious about the industry and how it works. I made a three-part series for the BBC called Boy Bands Forever. I'm a fan of boy bands and girl bands and Jade's always been eloquent and honest about
1:37 Speaker 00 her experiences as being, of being in a girl band and also of coming up through X Factor. All of the emotional ups and downs that that entails, all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans, and we speak about that in the chat. This one was recorded in person in mid-December last year. What else is there to say? A warning that there is strong language in the episode. There were discussions about mental health and eating disorders, so prepare yourself for that. All that and much, much more after this.
2:29 Speaker 00 Okay, first of all, thank you for doing the show.
2:32 Speaker 01 Of course.
2:33 Speaker 00 I enjoy your music. I haven't gone deep into the albums, but I remember Little Mix coming onto my radar, just listening to the radio, and I think it was Black Magic. And I was like, oh, that's different, that's fun. And then, and then the other singles, and I met Stormzy, and I remember mentioning.
2:47 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, I saw that.
2:48 Speaker 00 He featured on Power. Did you see that?
2:50 Speaker 01 I saw that interview, yeah.
2:52 Speaker 00 Do you remember what he said?
2:53 Speaker 01 He was very lovely about it, because, yeah.
2:55 Speaker 00 It was along the lines of, like, most of his tracks on YouTube have, like, whatever they have, forty, fifty, sixty million, and then that one's got, like, maybe two hundred and fifty or three hundred million.
3:05 Speaker 01 It did the job, didn't it? And he knew that, so...
3:07 Speaker 00 Yeah.
3:07 Speaker 01 But he's always been very lovely about us, and I think he didn't have to do that, because he's really cool. And I guess as a pop girl band, it was like, maybe not that cool, but he didn't care.
3:19 Speaker 00 Well, that's exactly what he said. And I think there might have been a bit of judgement directed his way, as an artist who came up in grime, doing a guest spot on a, on Little Mix.
3:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:31 Speaker 00 Track.
3:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:33 Speaker 00 The hook is, I'm not gonna sing it.
3:35 Speaker 01 Are you gonna sing?
3:39 Speaker 00 I've gotta do it now.
3:40 Speaker 01 Five, six, seven.
3:41 Speaker 00 You're the man, but I've got, I've got, I've got the power. Oh, jeez.
3:46 Speaker 01 And then there's the iconic bit where it's like, motorbike, motorbike, motorbike, bike, bike, bike, yeah.
3:51 Speaker 00 Who's decided that's iconic?
3:53 Speaker 01 I just think sometimes it's the most random bits, isn't it, that people latch on to?
3:57 Speaker 00 Yeah.
3:58 Speaker 01 You know, you do this huge anthem about female empowerment, and everyone's like, motorbike, motorbike. It's always the way that...
4:04 Speaker 00 And fair play to Stormzy as well, because then his lyrics are about, basically, how you have got the power and you wear the trousers.
4:12 Speaker 01 I love it.
4:13 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:13 Speaker 01 When the boys talk, lose the power, you know. You know what I mean? That was my impression of Stormzy.
4:19 Speaker 00 That was uncanny, it was like he was here.
4:20 Speaker 01 He's got such a distinctive voice.
4:23 Speaker 00 Amazing voice.
4:24 Speaker 01 Phenomenal. So yeah, hats off to Stormzy. He's been very, very lovely to me. When I brought out Angel My Dreams, he like DM'd me this really long message just saying how much he loved it and respected what I was trying to do and all that stuff. So that was very lovely, yeah.
4:39 Speaker 00 So that lands us back in the present because, so after 10 or 11 years of incredible success with Little Mix, you then, did you break up or go on hiatus?
4:50 Speaker 01 It's like a hiatus. I wouldn't say it's a breakup because we're still really close and like, we definitely want to do a reunion at some point. So yeah, I'd say hiatus. As much as everyone goes, oh, when you say that word, we do mean it.
5:04 Speaker 00 Right.
5:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:05 Speaker 00 But it's often used as a euphemism for a breakup, like a trial separation in that case. But you, you're still friends from what I can tell, the three of you that were in Little Mix. And so you came up with this single earlier this year, which everyone loves, basically, Angel My Dreams, and I think surprised a lot of people.
5:25 Speaker 01 I think nobody thought that I would come out swinging with something quite ballsy, maybe. I've been writing since we decided to have a hiatus, which was like a year before it happened. So like three years in the making, really. But I wrote Angel My Dreams last year and I was really struggling, a lot of writer's block. I couldn't think of anything else to sing about because I'd ticked everything I could possibly think of off. And then the morning that I wrote that song, the head of my label at the time left. So I was having a mini meltdown because, as you may or may not know, when you're assigned to like a major label, when the head leaves, or if the person that's championing you leaves, that could be...
6:11 Speaker 01 Like very detrimental. If someone new comes in and they're not really asked about, do you know what I mean?
6:15 Speaker 00 You're a champion. It's a bit like if you're in TV, if the channel controller goes
6:19 Speaker 01 Right.
6:19 Speaker 00 And they're like, will the next person be a fan or not?
6:22 Speaker 01 Exactly. So I was freaking out about that. And then I went in the studio, I was in a foul mood. And then I was just mourning about the industry. And then that was the birth of Edge of My Dreams.
6:33 Speaker 00 It's a kind of mashup of styles.
6:34 Speaker 01 Yes.
6:35 Speaker 00 Uh, and feels, as I said, I think I said, experimental. And I think people enjoyed that about it, right? I don't think you can get away with being basic in that space anymore. Do you know what I mean?
6:47 Speaker 01 I think people just wanna be, we're in this era now where people get bored so easily. So you really have to do everything you can to like grasp people's attention and like hold on to it. I think coming from Little Mix as well, that was such a formula for me of what kind of song that like we should write for that. So with my own music, I was definitely craving something that sounded nothing like that. And I think with Edge of My Dreams, I wanted it to literally sound like I'd Frankenstein'd all these parts of my younger self that like I'd grown up listening to. So like the start of Edge of My Dreams is like a reference to sort of Motown Diana Ross. That's something that I loved listening to growing up.
7:28 Speaker 01 So I think you can hear that kind of Motown ballad vibe at the beginning. Then you sort of catapult it into like a cascarada, club land, land with the heavy.
7:40 Speaker 00 What was the phrase you just used? Scooter?
7:42 Speaker 01 Scooter, cascarada. They're two like
7:45 Speaker 00 I'm feeling very old suddenly.
7:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, they're two like dance, club land artists.
7:49 Speaker 00 Scooter Braun?
7:50 Speaker 01 No, that's the manager. Scooter is just one name, actually. I think he's German.
7:57 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:58 Speaker 01 It was like sort of hardcore, like Euro dance, like
8:00 Speaker 00 Right.
8:02 Speaker 01 So I grew up listening to a lot of that, like as a teenager. So that's where that comes into the chaos of Edge of My Dreams. And then I love musicals too. So I feel like it has sort of three acts to that song. And so, yeah, I wanted it to feel like my sort of mini, like Bohemian Rhapsody musical Rocky Horror Picture Show.
8:27 Speaker 01 Chaotic pop song.
8:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, the themes are about your love hate relationship with the music industry.
8:32 Speaker 01 Yes.
8:33 Speaker 00 How much do you want to say about that?
8:35 Speaker 01 Whatever.
8:35 Speaker 00 Because you sort of personify aspects of what's taken to be, I suppose, the part of it that feels most manufactured. Having come up as from winning X Factor with Little Mix and then, you know, being a girl band.
8:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:49 Speaker 00 You know, it's always assumed with boy bands and girl bands that they're not in control of their destiny. I don't know if that's the case or not, that there's a manager who's put them together and that behind the scenes, someone is styling and guiding them. So there's one narrative which would put you as a kind of victim of the industry machine.
9:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:05 Speaker 00 Aspects of which are implied by the song as well, Angel in My Dreams. But then there's also a sense which obviously there's more to it than that, right? You have more power than that might suggest.
9:16 Speaker 01 I think both things are true, to be honest, because especially on X Factor, it was very much like you put on what you're taught to put on. You sing what you're taught to sing.
9:26 Speaker 01 It is quite a manipulated show and I was only 18 at the time, so I was very young, very naive. And I mean, thankfully, because half the time I didn't really know what was going on and I'm glad for it.
9:40 Speaker 01 I mean, in terms of style, we looked like a shit show, but we just didn't want to piss anyone off on the show because we just desperately wanted to get to the end.
9:49 Speaker 00 I'm not sure if you looked like a shit show.
9:51 Speaker 01 It was that era of like, you know, like that Nicki Minaj and like Katy Perry where everything was super bright and colourful. So we'd walk in the styling room and it'd be like, okay, you're in like a fuchsia pink legging today and a bow tie and a whatever. And then you're dying your hair red and you know, when they do the make up as an X Factor, you really don't get a choice in that. I think on X Factor, you are very much like, you are more of a like a product or a pawn in the game show than like a human.
10:20 Speaker 01 But that being said, I kind of did love the experience.
10:24 Speaker 00 They're making TV first and the music is a by-product.
10:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:28 Speaker 00 Right?
10:28 Speaker 01 I would say so, but.
10:29 Speaker 00 I don't think that's a judgement.
10:31 Speaker 01 No, not at all.
10:32 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:32 Speaker 01 And I knew that anyways, I'd already auditioned twice before. And for me A levels for my media studies exam, it was based on the X Factor. So I literally like studied it before I did it again the third time.
10:43 Speaker 00 Well, because you mentioned you tried it when you were 18, but in fact you tried first three years earlier when you were 15.
10:48 Speaker 01 Yes.
10:49 Speaker 00 And then again when you were 17.
10:51 Speaker 01 17.
10:52 Speaker 00 Before you said something, you said half the time you didn't know what was going on and you're grateful for it.
10:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:56 Speaker 00 What do you mean by that?
10:57 Speaker 01 I think just in terms of like the manipulation of like public perception and stuff like. I didn't understand at the time that if you said something to certain members of staff, it would end up in the press the next day or. You know, things like that, I definitely wasn't that privy to.
11:15 Speaker 00 Right. Do you have an inkling that that might be the case?
11:18 Speaker 01 As it went on, yes. Or, you know, if you were the first contestant to do their song at the start of the show, you knew you were probably going home because. If there's 12 of that people about to perform after you, everyone's going to forget about you by the end. Do you know what I mean? Stuff like that.
11:32 Speaker 00 Yeah.
11:33 Speaker 01 And we knew as a girl band, we would have a tougher job getting people to like us. Girl bands never did well on the show.
11:40 Speaker 00 Why do you think that is?
11:42 Speaker 01 I think as women, obviously you're taught to sort of compete with each other anyways. So I think if girls feel threatened by you or intimidated, that's one part of it. It's hard to show personality in a band from the off, which is why X Factor was really good, I guess, for us. Because we were just like four young girls having a lot of fun and messing around and really wanted to genuinely change our lives. I think that endeared the public. There was nothing sexy about us on the show because we were kids. So I think that was the difference for us that year is like mamas were written for us and little girls. Do you know what I mean? We weren't alienating or we weren't intimidating anyone. So I think that swayed it that year.
12:26 Speaker 00 Did, um, there's a BBC podcast called Off Stage, have you heard of it?
12:30 Speaker 01 No.
12:31 Speaker 00 It's a five or six part. Podcast about X Factor. Sort of exploring the extent to which it was manipulative. Because obviously, there's a, there's been a little bit of a backlash, I would say. Would you say against reality TV in general, I think. And, and people are, I don't know how real it is or how much it's driven by media. Everything gets sort of revised and re-examined. And I think part of it is people, a few years on, processing the experience of having been on X Factor. But anyway, one of the people on there, the contestants describes being put in a hotel. And they say, well, you, you would share a room with other contestants in the early stages. And she was put in a room with you. And you would have been 15 at the time.
13:15 Speaker 00 And she said she was 22 or 23.
13:18 Speaker 01 What was her name? Do you remember? Was it Chrissie?
13:20 Speaker 00 Might have been. Describes your mum dropping you off and she had to go back to South Shields. And feeling protective of you and thinking, wow, this 15 year old, like, she's just sort of quite vulnerable here.
13:31 Speaker 01 Very vulnerable, yeah.
13:32 Speaker 00 Where would it have been? In London?
13:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I, I mean, I visited London with me mum. I think me mum got a hotel next door, actually, because she was like beside herself at the thought of me just sort of being there on my own. Because it is a pretty savage experience, especially bootcamp. It's a week of like hardcore rounds of auditions. It's absolutely brutal. I remember, I think I know who you're talking about, because I think they were like, that's another thing. If you're like flavour of the month or whatever with the camera crew, they'll like come in the room and they'll make a big deal of you. And I remember being sat there and they didn't want to do any interviews of me. And I thought, oh, that means I'm not saying it through to the end of the week, stuff like that, yeah. But that was the, maybe that was the second time, actually. But the third time, they called me and asked me to audition.
14:16 Speaker 00 Did they?
14:17 Speaker 01 Yes.
14:17 Speaker 00 But you were saying it's quite brutal. Is that what you were just saying?
14:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
14:20 Speaker 00 In what way?
14:21 Speaker 01 Well, just, you know, the comments are savage, you know, each week is. You really put through the mill. You were saying about the room sharing stuff, like when we got through to the live shows. All of the women had to share the same room. So we got put in this house and all of the female contestants, no matter what age. And obviously I didn't know who these people were or what their mental health, you know, background checks were or anything. A lot of chaos went on in that X Factor house. I'm sure that could have been a TV show in itself.
14:54 Speaker 00 What kind of chaos? Who took my milk kind of thing?
14:57 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, I mean.
14:58 Speaker 00 Someone's eating my yogurt?
15:00 Speaker 01 There was a lot of that. Me and Perry especially, we'd never like left home before. So then all of a sudden it was like he has a bit of money to go and do a shop. So I'd come back with like a Cadbury's chocolate mousse and be like, that's my dinner for the week. Cause I didn't, I'd never cooked properly or, you know, learned to look after myself properly. And there was one guy who was like from the military. He staged an intervention because Frankie Cocosa stole my lasagna. That was a fiasco.
15:27 Speaker 00 Seriously? Frankie Cocosa stole your lasagna?
15:31 Speaker 01 He stole my lasagna out the fridge and there was murders about it. But on, you know, a more sort of deeper level, it was like everyone was struggling mentally. It was the dawn of Twitter. So it was the beginning of like trolling and all that stuff. So we were having to adjust to that. The hours were crazy. But I feel really conflicted, bad mouthing it because it also changed my life for the better. You know, I got put through the mill on that show, but ultimately it meant that, you know, I moved out of my hometown. I could support my family. Not everyone's as lucky as that, I suppose, when you come off the shore, but.
16:11 Speaker 00 You said they invited you back to audition for the third time?
16:15 Speaker 01 They wanted a girl band, yeah.
16:16 Speaker 00 Really?
16:17 Speaker 01 And I wasn't so sure about it because I didn't think I was like sexy enough to be in like a pussycat dolls-esque. Girl band, which is what I guess my mind immediately went to. So I was very relieved when I got put with the other girls because we were all on the same page of. Just being completely ourselves.
16:37 Speaker 00 Do you see much, when you're on the show, do you see much of Simon and Louis and the other judges?
16:41 Speaker 01 I didn't see Simon on the show. He wasn't a judge that year. But even throughout our whole career, he was like, you know, like Charlie's Angels. I didn't see much of him. It was maybe once every couple of years or something, we'd go around his house and he'd ask how things were going or, you know, he'd give the final nod of approval on things. But I think we had more creative control of our music than maybe other artists stayed on the label.
17:06 Speaker 00 Right.
17:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:08 Speaker 00 When you win, do you have to sign to Psycho, the label?
17:13 Speaker 01 Well, legally, no, but I didn't know that. So we got put in a room. It was like, this is your management, this is your schedule when you win, this is your label contract. And I just signed it.
17:31 Speaker 00 Maybe you didn't feel, you're in the rush of success, you weren't asking a lot of questions.
17:36 Speaker 01 Well, I didn't have a clue.
17:38 Speaker 00 Didn't have a clue.
17:38 Speaker 01 Do you know what I mean? And I remember my friend, Joe, telling me, Joe McKelley, we're from the same hometown. He'd won it like two years before. And he said to me, make sure your mom is with you when you're checking any contracts or signing anything. But you don't want to be that uncool person in front of all these business heads being like, can I ask me mom if I can?
17:57 Speaker 00 Killing the vibe.
17:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, killing like the pop vibe, do you know what I mean? So.
18:02 Speaker 00 And it's like, oh, she's being ungrateful.
18:05 Speaker 01 Exactly. You don't want to piss anyone off.
18:07 Speaker 00 Wow, she's a diva already.
18:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, you don't want to look ungrateful. And you do desperately, you know, you want that chance, so you do it.
18:15 Speaker 00 Obviously, we have to reflect the fact that.
18:20 Speaker 00 You know where I'm gonna go?
18:21 Speaker 01 I think so.
18:22 Speaker 00 The lyric on the, on the song, Angel of My Dreams, care that I'm mad, care that I'm sad, it's so bad, it's funny. Care if I cry, care if I die, you only care about money, selling my soul to a psycho.
18:36 Speaker 00 They say I'm so lucky. Psycho happens to be the name of Simon Cowell's company.
18:40 Speaker 01 Coincidentally, yes.
18:44 Speaker 00 Is that what we're gonna say about that?
18:45 Speaker 01 Hmm. I mean, it's written on the tin, isn't it, really?
18:51 Speaker 00 Yeah. What would we say was the goods and the bads of that relationship?
18:57 Speaker 01 Of Cycle?
18:57 Speaker 00 Yeah.
18:58 Speaker 01 The goods were that the immediate team were phenomenal. Our A and R were brilliant. Everyone that worked closely with us were genuinely amazing at their job. So I would never discredit that. We obviously blew up because we had a team around us that were very passionate about that happening. And, you know, especially at the start of that journey, there was still a lot of budgets and a lot of money in labels. So we were very lucky to get the treatment that we did. And then I'd say the bad stuff is just the sort of politics of it all. Like, you have to do this song or you can't have this.
19:40 Speaker 01 Or if you go with that creative choice of that song, you won't get X, Y and Z. There was a lot of, like, political...
19:49 Speaker 00 What did it feel like? That favors were being done?
19:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, like whether there's relationships with producers or, you know, things like that where we weren't really in the know or...
20:00 Speaker 00 Other agendas in the room?
20:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think so, yeah.
20:05 Speaker 01 And just the sheer, like, ferocity of being thrust into the industry with not a lot of guidance, I would say. And I think we all suffered somewhat because of that. There's so many people that came out of the X Factor that I know anyways had some sort of mental health issue off the back of it. But, yeah, it's a lot for anyone to comprehend, never mind, like, young women. So, yeah, I'd say that was one of the other. Bad parts.
20:38 Speaker 00 We should talk about that because I made a, I was the executive producer on a series that just went out called Boy Bands Forever.
20:44 Speaker 01 I watched it.
20:44 Speaker 00 Did you?
20:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:45 Speaker 00 Did that. So it's basically, it's a three part series that looks at the heyday of British and Irish boy bands, starting with Take That in E17 and kind of going up to Blue and Five and a few others, and then the reunion of Take That and some of the other groups.
21:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:01 Speaker 00 And the takeaway is, these are men who are now around 50 years old, still going through the process of figuring out what happened. But if you, if you asked me to identify what exactly the nub of what they were dealing with was, it would be hard to put it into just a couple of words.
21:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:21 Speaker 00 I mean, it's overwork.
21:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:23 Speaker 00 Overexposure.
21:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:25 Speaker 00 Being alienated from your friends and family who don't really get what you're going through.
21:29 Speaker 01 No.
21:30 Speaker 00 Tabloid attention and your every move being chronicled in the press, or being sold to the press, being followed around, breakups, indiscretions, betrayals, all ending up in the paper.
21:40 Speaker 01 Yeah. To be fair, I watched that and I did think, gosh, I thought I had it bad. And then some of their stories, I was like, wow. But yeah, I guess it was more tabloid heavy then. When we first started, it was, it was still tabloid heavy, but then, yeah, it was the rise of like social media at the same time. So it was like slapped with both sides. And just as young women, it was still like perhaps we're allowed to try and picture under your skirt when you got out of the taxi or.
22:08 Speaker 00 You said that Paparazzo actually did that to you.
22:10 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, quite often, yeah.
22:12 Speaker 00 More than once?
22:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:13 Speaker 00 But they can't print those. So what are, that's just something to actually just almost like a trophy for himself.
22:20 Speaker 01 I don't know yet. I mean, as an 18 year old, that was very, quite scary. Or like you'd get in the taxi and then they would just open the door and take pictures. Like, so from the off, it was like this invasive, yeah, feeling around you.
22:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, a lot to take in, I would say. And then, you know, the idea of people suddenly like selling stories on you or the press wanting to know everything about you, or twisting your words in interviews. We did a little bit of media training. But I don't think anything can prepare you for like how to say the right thing all the time, or when not to say something and all that stuff. But we, at the same time, we did love it. We were so excited. It was so new to us. We were all like, oh my god, we've made it now. And, you know, you're doing HIV signings in your hometown and all your family and friends are there. So that's why I think it's really hard to discuss because it's such a complicated feeling of being so grateful to be there.
23:19 Speaker 01 But like you say about the boy band stuff, you can't really say to your mate who like works in Tesco, I'm having a really bad time at work. Like, how can you moan about a dream like that, you know?
23:31 Speaker 00 And hence the lyric, "I will always want you and need you." Well, anyway, "I love you and hate you. It's not fair. It's so bittersweet." Like, obviously you're wrapping your arms around not just the negative, but also the positive. The video is kind of amazing.
23:45 Speaker 01 Thank you.
23:45 Speaker 00 Who directed it?
23:46 Speaker 01 That was Orb Perry.
23:48 Speaker 00 Shout out Orb Perry.
23:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, phenomenal. Like, one of the best directors I've ever worked with.
23:53 Speaker 00 There's an enormous man with huge fists and a huge chin who's like a figure through the video, who represents... What does he represent?
24:02 Speaker 01 He represents just the music industry to me. He's this big comic book villain, which is something I mean, Orb, discussed in great detail. Especially for my first song, I needed the video to tell the story. And so we met up a bunch of times to really go into depth of how that story would be told. And yeah, I think this M character in the video is meant to be, yeah, this, this thing, this entity that I'm in a relationship that I can't live without.
24:31 Speaker 00 Right.
24:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:34 Speaker 00 You actually knew Liam Payne a bit, didn't you?
24:38 Speaker 01 Yes, growing up, yeah.
24:40 Speaker 00 Because he was on X Factor.
24:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:42 Speaker 00 That first time you were, when you were 15?
24:44 Speaker 01 I met him when I was 15, yeah. We both auditioned and because we were under 16 or under 18, we had to have chaperones, so our parents were with us on the first time.
24:55 Speaker 00 Really?
24:56 Speaker 01 And so we became really close because there's only a few, like, young'uns. And then we went back to audition again together. So I knew him quite well at that time. But, you know, as the years go on and they obviously blew up, we sort of fell out of touch a bit, but always supported each other from afar, I would say.
25:18 Speaker 00 Right.
25:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:19 Speaker 00 What was the year when One Direction were put together then? Was that 2010?
25:25 Speaker 01 It was 2010, yeah, because we were 2011.
25:27 Speaker 00 The second time you were there then?
25:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:29 Speaker 00 So you sort of saw that happening. In fact, there's a clip on YouTube of Harry running up. Have you seen that?
25:34 Speaker 01 You've really deep dived, haven't you?
25:36 Speaker 00 Tried to. And Harry runs up and it's like, surprise, and then you look fairly blasé about it. And the comments are like, love how Jade gives him the side eye, or something. Not side eye, but basically how seemingly unimpressed you are.
25:52 Speaker 01 I didn't know he was going to be the Harry Styles, did I? I think we went on like one date when, again, we were like 16 or something.
25:59 Speaker 00 Did you?
25:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I, you know, this is, you'd just got put in the band. And, yeah, it was really funny because we kept in touch.
26:06 Speaker 00 You and Harry?
26:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, and then the minute they went on live shows, he didn't message me back and I thought, that's it now, he's gone. He's made it. And then I made it the next year. And then I saw him in the room after and he was like, I'm really sorry that I ignored you.
26:21 Speaker 00 He ghosted you.
26:25 Speaker 01 But again, I was so young, it didn't really matter. But he was always very, very lovely.
26:30 Speaker 00 Really?
26:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:33 Speaker 00 So much pain. Harry's a friend of the podcast, so he could well be listening to this.
26:37 Speaker 01 Oh, really? I mean, he's got himself to where he is because he's very talented and he's very lovely, very charming.
26:44 Speaker 00 And in fact, he's a model for how you can leave a boy band.
26:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:50 Speaker 00 And then just take your artistry to a whole new dimension.
26:55 Speaker 01 Oh, 100%.
26:57 Speaker 00 But not to... So with Liam, could you see... Oh, I don't want... How do we talk? I don't think it's really fair to speculate on what happened and it's all still new and kind of, and still painful.
27:12 Speaker 00 But I guess the question would be, do you think it's fair in any way to attribute any of what happened to the fact that he was in a band and that he went through all of that? That's become the narrative.
27:26 Speaker 01 I mean, I'm sure there's many factors. I don't think I can talk on it in depth because I don't think it's my place to, because I didn't really know him
27:37 Speaker 01 over the last few years. But I, like I say, I think everyone that enters the industry at a young age is going to go through it in some way. And it can be really lonely when you're that huge. Because, you know, none of those boys could just go out and do whatever they wanted. You know, being stuck in hotel rooms and having nothing to do. And so I think it all makes sense that being in a boy band can contribute to being in a dark place for sure.
28:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:12 Speaker 00 I mean, were there times when you found it lonely?
28:15 Speaker 01 Yes, 100%.
28:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, and always when we were probably at our biggest as well, like when we'd have our biggest career moments is probably when I would feel like the worst. So I do understand in that respect.
28:31 Speaker 00 How would you explain that?
28:33 Speaker 01 I just think there's so much pressure. I think like the bigger you get, the more your sort of condition that you have to latch on to that or you have to keep that up. Because if you come anywhere below that, you're then flopping.
28:44 Speaker 00 Hmm.
28:44 Speaker 01 Which is so stupid to think of because it's like, okay, if the next song's not a number one hit, you flopped. And I think that was not so much now, but especially like 10 years ago, that was the mentality of like the industry or like public perception. So I think when you've got that pressure on you, you know, for us as women, you're like becoming a woman in the public eye and you're trying to maintain relationships outside of that. You work to the bone. I definitely had moments where I did have very severe like depression or anxiety. Um, there was one like era where I was really in a quite a dark place and my mom had to
29:29 Speaker 01 come on the road with me on tour because I think she was really concerned of what would happen if she wasn't there. So. Yeah. And I used to, uh, well, I used to have anorexia as a teenager. So I think now and again, that would come back into it if I was really stressed or whatever.
29:49 Speaker 00 As a sort of coping strategy?
29:51 Speaker 01 I think so, yeah. So like during the whole, I call it the glory days era, ironically, because that's what the album was called, but that literally was our glory days. It was the peak of our career where like Shout Out To My Ex came out and that was humongous and internationally like things were popping off. Um, but I look back at pictures of myself now at that time and I look very unwell, I think. And I would suffer from like night terrors, but you know, like when you're little and you have horrible nightmares. But as, as an adult, I started getting them and that really freaked me out mentally. So I definitely had my moments.
30:30 Speaker 00 To what extent does having the other girls in the band with you, does that help? Or is it difficult to talk about? Or does some of it? Are there also politics within the group that mean it's difficult to share stuff?
30:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, it just, it depends, because I think all of us went through waves of having certain moments and all you can do is, in a very unqualified way, try and support each other because you don't really have the foundations there around you to like help you with that, so you know, we tried our best, I think, but just naturally as well, yeah, politically, it's not always happy days, is it? And during that period especially, and to be honest, now I'm older, I'm like, it's through nobody else's fault really, I was just feeling that way. But you kind of isolate yourself, don't you, when you're super depressed or you project outwards onto other people, so I don't hold any sort of grudge or animosity for anyone around me at that time.
31:27 Speaker 00 But maybe at the time you didn't feel that supported?
31:32 Speaker 00 You were incapable or unable to seek support in a way?
31:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think, not necessarily just from the girls, I think just everyone around me, I think when I was feeling really worryingly down, I didn't know who I could call and that's why I ended up ringing me mum. But I didn't want to scare me mum, so I just sort of said, oh, I'm struggling a little bit. But, again, at the same time, I was on stage in front of thousands of people. I was travelling the world, which I love to do. And I think even that makes you feel an enormous amount of guilt, because I'm like, oh my god, like, I'm doing what I love. But then I get home and I feel really lonely.
32:15 Speaker 01 You know, we won a Brit Award that year, I went back to the hotel room and I was just sat on me own with a cup of tea, like, all right, what was that then? Do you know what I mean? So it's quite an isolating experience if you don't have the right, like, tools around you to help you with that.
32:33 Speaker 00 Winning the Brit Award was a big deal.
32:36 Speaker 01 Yes.
32:37 Speaker 00 What did you win it for?
32:38 Speaker 01 That year we won Best Single for Shout Out To My Ex.
32:41 Speaker 00 Was that the one where you gave the speech, basically giving credit to the girl bands that had gone before?
32:49 Speaker 01 That was the Best Group Award that we won only a few years ago, actually. And that was the first time a girl band had ever won Best Group in like 43 years.
33:01 Speaker 00 And everyone was thrilled and the speech, you basically shouted out Spice Girls.
33:09 Speaker 00 Sugar Babes, All Saints.
33:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, all the pop girlies.
33:14 Speaker 00 And Liam Gallagher said, should we do this?
33:17 Speaker 01 If you want, was it not Noel?
33:21 Speaker 00 Little Mix, with the greatest respect. I love how when someone's gonna be rude to you, they start by saying, with the greatest respect.
33:26 Speaker 01 Not being funny, but.
33:27 Speaker 00 Yeah, exactly. Not exactly. And not in the same league as Oasis. Was he up for the same award?
33:32 Speaker 01 No, I don't think so.
33:34 Speaker 00 Not even in the same fucking sport, he said.
33:37 Speaker 01 Well, we're very different bands, so I'll give him that, to that respect. He's not wrong, we're very, you know, we're a pop girl band. I don't know why he was comparing us, actually.
33:48 Speaker 00 Maybe for the clicks.
33:49 Speaker 01 I think so. I think he loves a little confrontation, doesn't he, that one?
33:52 Speaker 00 That's part of his brand.
33:54 Speaker 01 I seen him at Glastonbury that year, actually, me and my boyfriend, and Jordan, my boyfriend, was like, I'm gonna go over and say something. I was like, all right, then, give it a go. He went over, I was like, you are really rude about my girlfriend, do you wanna apologize? He went, fuck off!
34:05 Speaker 00 Really?
34:06 Speaker 01 And I thought, do you know what? Fair play.
34:08 Speaker 00 So, wait, and Jordan was like, oh, all right then, when you put it like that.
34:11 Speaker 01 Well, I just thought it was really funny, because, exactly, you can't really argue with that, do you know what I mean? And I also kind of love that I've ended up with some sort of tiff with one of the Gallaghers. I feel like, it's the same as getting a hate tweet from Azealia Banks.
34:25 Speaker 00 Is that what she specializes in?
34:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, I feel like you've made it when Azealia Banks drags you on Twitter, or when one of the Gallaghers has sparked some sort of confrontation with you.
34:36 Speaker 00 And the third one, which you've also, have you had a hate tweet from Azealia Banks?
34:39 Speaker 01 No, not yet.
34:41 Speaker 00 She had one, I mean, look, she had one hit, right? What's the 911? Was that the track?
34:46 Speaker 01 212.
34:47 Speaker 00 What's the 212? Cut that bit out.
34:50 Speaker 01 911's a Gaga song, very good one.
34:52 Speaker 00 Is it?
34:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:53 Speaker 00 What's the 212? And she is a great, it's a great track.
34:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, she, I mean, she's a brilliant rapper.
34:58 Speaker 00 She's been pouring scorn on anyone who comes in her vicinity, although I've got a soft spot for her, because apparently she likes dating older white men.
35:05 Speaker 01 Well, every cloud.
35:09 Speaker 01 There you go.
35:10 Speaker 00 Where were we going? Oh, yeah. And the third that you know you've made it when surely is when Piers Morgan has a pop at you.
35:16 Speaker 01 Which you tick.
35:17 Speaker 00 Which you also ticked that box.
35:19 Speaker 01 They're like the Thanos Stones. We're collecting all the hateful people.
35:24 Speaker 00 Thanos Stones, I like that.
35:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:26 Speaker 00 There's Thanos Stones of the Louis Theroux podcast.
35:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:29 Speaker 00 Which I thought, I call it the bingo card, which is when we mentioned, for some reason, Andrew Tate always gets a mention. Have you met him?
35:36 Speaker 01 I haven't, but I mean, I'm not particularly.
35:38 Speaker 00 Not the biggest fan.
35:39 Speaker 01 No, I'm not fussed about that.
35:41 Speaker 00 Well, I don't know if we're gonna hit the bingo card on this one. Woody Allen, is he a fan?
35:47 Speaker 01 I doubt it. I doubt it.
35:50 Speaker 00 So, I mean, the thing that resonated with me was when you said you've got enormous success and that takes you to a dark place. You're thinking, wait, have you had enormous success? Answer, no. But I have had some success.
36:04 Speaker 01 You have.
36:05 Speaker 00 And, and, and there's this sense of like, now you need to keep it going.
36:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:09 Speaker 00 And actually, I feel like chasing success, it creatively can stifle you because suddenly the pressure is on and you're not loose. And the things that got you success in the first place maybe wasn't necessarily a desire for success. It was a desire to have fun, express yourself.
36:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:26 Speaker 00 Does that make sense?
36:27 Speaker 01 Oh, 100%.
36:28 Speaker 00 And so I imagine like, especially when there's 100 people, managers, labels, stylists, producers, and they're all saying like, here's what you need to do now. How do you sort of just stay focused on making sure that you're actually doing what you love and believe in?
36:45 Speaker 01 I think we would always try and have some time, like just to ourselves, to sort of probably subconsciously remember what it felt like when we first got put together. That magic of when it was just us practising in like Perry's stepdad's pub.
37:03 Speaker 01 Trying to come up with ideas of what we wanted to be as a brand and what we would represent. Like, we would go shopping together, we'd stay, we'd have sleepovers together. Because we knew it was important to build our friendships. So I think whenever we were struggling with all these outside voices and noises, we would be like, girl, should we just like, schedule in a night together where we're just chilling and we're not necessarily talking about all the businessy bits or the kind of soul destroying parts of the job. Because we always knew that if we wanted longevity, we had to be friends. Or we had to be on the same page. We weren't always gonna agree, like anyone, but
37:45 Speaker 01 we made sure that we were all the most important people in our career, not anyone else outside of that. And there was no lead singer and stuff like that as well, we always pushed for because.
37:56 Speaker 00 Shared the vocals.
37:57 Speaker 01 Shared the vocals, always equal. Even when people thought we were being insane, we were like, no, we stick to this because we know what happens when labels or management, whatever, will push just one person. That's when, you know, the imbalance begins and the resentment or the jealousy or whatever. So we'd literally be, we'd count the ad libs. Her girl sometimes, yeah. Or like in a video, be like, she's got ten shots and she's only got five, so we need to, you know, make that more equal. And it sounds so silly, but I do think it kept us going for longer because we always were like, no, we're equal in this. Yeah.
38:32 Speaker 00 Um, it was, it was you, Leanne, Perry and Jessie.
38:37 Speaker 01 Yes.
38:38 Speaker 00 Jessie left, that was a high profile thing. Um, how much can you say about that?
38:43 Speaker 01 Um.
38:45 Speaker 00 She was going through a lot of emotional highs and lows.
38:47 Speaker 01 There was a lot going on at that time. I think, to be honest, I think Covid was a bit of a catalyst for like, things just generally slowing down and falling apart. I think all of us, when we had to stop priorities, our perspectives changed on what everyone wanted individually and I think, um.
39:07 Speaker 00 Was she pushed?
39:08 Speaker 01 No, no, absolutely not. Nobody was pushed, that's for sure. Uh, maybe pushed mentally just by, you know, the perils of being in the industry, but.
39:20 Speaker 00 She said she needed to work on her mental health, I think.
39:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:23 Speaker 00 And then she quite quickly released a solo record.
39:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. I know what you're doing. You're giggling, you're like, what? No, I'm not gonna jump on that, I just.
39:35 Speaker 00 That was what the internet said. Do you know what you do? You just go on, here's my interview technique, I'm giving it away. You go on YouTube. And you look at a recent video, and then you look at the most recent, the most liked comments. And that's what the world is thinking. And it might be wrong or right, but it's what the people are thinking. So that was one of the comments underneath, maybe her video, or someone else's.
39:58 Speaker 01 I think.
40:01 Speaker 01 Some people are right, some people are wrong. So much went on during that period that it actually feels
40:08 Speaker 01 like a fever dream for me. It was such a stressful time.
40:10 Speaker 00 Remember, how convenient.
40:12 Speaker 01 No, no, I can't, no, I can remember. I just mean, it was so hazy because all of us, all four of us, I think, were traumatised by that whole experience, like.
40:23 Speaker 01 I will never begrudge Jessie wanting to leave because if she needed to do that for herself, no matter what happened behind the scenes, or, you know, anything that unfolded, I'll never discredit or invalidate the struggles that she had in the group, particularly at the beginning. She, she really did suffer the most in terms of, like, trolling, the press being really mean, all of that stuff. And it, it really did some lasting damage. And we always tried our best to support her in that.
40:57 Speaker 01 Sometimes you get it wrong, sometimes you get it right. Like, again, like I said before, we're not qualified to, especially at 18 years old, to help someone with that. You just be your friend as much as you can. And I think towards the end. Yeah, I think she gradually clocked out and that's fair enough and I feel like I can't and I don't wanna talk about it in depth because it isn't just my story to tell. I'd be speaking for people and I don't think that's right. But for myself, I will say that I'm still getting over it now, quite truthfully. Yeah, just because it was really sad and it was really stressful because when it all happened,
41:40 Speaker 01 we were literally promoting a single and an album at the same time. Everyone was asking what was going on. We didn't necessarily know exactly what was going on. We found out very abruptly that it was happening. And again, I don't wanna go into the details of it, but I think all of us, probably just included, but we're all very confused and just sort of, you know, when like, we had a lot of group therapy, I had a lot of personal therapy and because the contact was so abruptly cut off, it was very hard to deal with and quite traumatic and I-
42:18 Speaker 00 It was non-speaks, was it?
42:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was. I honestly, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I don't think, I think that's why I struggled with it is because we didn't all get a chance to just sit together like we'd done so for so many years to just hash it out. There's no hate there from, from me or from any of us, I think. I think it's just all quite sad that it happened and I had to grieve that happening. And I remember I was dating Jordan, it was very early days at the time and so I was scared to like show him like what this meant for me. Because I think in his head he was like, oh, you know, you were banned, someone left, that happens all the time.
43:02 Speaker 01 And he's had, he does, not a similar thing actually, but you know, he disbanded from Rizzle Kicks years before. So he was like, babe, you'll be alright, this is all good. I remember we were driving to, I think we were driving up north actually to see my family and I was being really short with him, like very snappy because I was frustrated. And he kept probing like, what's wrong, what's wrong, tell us. And then honestly, out of nowhere, I literally like bellowed like fucking whale or something. You know, like when you have so much grief that you feel like you've been like winded and you start like wailing. And I'd, I'd never cried like that since me grandad died when I was thirty because it was my first experience of like grief.
43:41 Speaker 01 And I think it was all the years of like, the love and the, everything we'd been through together, the good things, the bad things, you know, and enabling behaviours or being there for each other. It was just all like, I think so much had been brushed under the rug and then it just fucking exploded. And I was like, yeah, just wailed and wailed for like an hour or something. We parked up at services and he was like, do you want some peace? And I was like, yes. And then bless him, that's when I knew he was the keeper because he was like, are you all right on your own for a little bit? I mean, I couldn't actually speak because I was like screaming. And then he went out into the shops and he came back with the pasty from Greg's and I thought,
44:24 Speaker 01 that's the one. I don't know where, I don't know how I got to that point.
44:30 Speaker 00 That was, and that was the grief at basically losing Jessie.
44:33 Speaker 01 I think so, yeah.
44:34 Speaker 00 Losing the friendship.
44:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:36 Speaker 00 Wow.
44:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:39 Speaker 00 Are you back in touch with her now?
44:40 Speaker 01 No.
44:44 Speaker 00 I think a lot, a lot, there were a lot of friendships that went south in lockdown. I don't know if that relates to this one. I think it does a bit. Well, you were saying that, didn't you say that she left in lockdown? I don't say that was the only or even the main contributing factor, but communication became so strained.
45:02 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
45:02 Speaker 00 That small misunderstandings got magnified.
45:06 Speaker 01 Do you know what was funny about it? It actually wasn't like, there wasn't any big arguments or it was just simmering. And I think because, like you say, with lockdown, the communication sort of dwindled a bit. So I think it was just one thing after another. It was years of stuff. It was, it was all sort of, I think because everyone had a pause, nobody could patch the leaks up anymore. Do you know what I mean? Because we weren't all together to just keep it moving.
45:33 Speaker 00 Yeah.
45:34 Speaker 01 And I think it's really sad because when we first started, you know, you always think we're not going to be, we're not going to be that band where something like happens or, you know, you're so adamant that you're gonna, that's not going to happen to you. But that's just life, isn't it?
45:48 Speaker 00 Just worth saying that on iPlayer, BBC iPlayer, there's a, her documentary's still up.
45:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:54 Speaker 00 Odd One Out, it's called, which you appear in, which is when she's still in the band and kind of dealing with, um, trolling and, and the level of viciousness that was directed at her.
46:05 Speaker 01 It was really bru- like really brutal. For everyone, but yeah, she got it the worst, I would say. To the point where I even had a Daily Mail account so that I could clap back at every troll on
46:16 Speaker 00 Did you?
46:16 Speaker 01 the comments, yeah. Because I couldn't bear it because I felt like no one was helping.
46:21 Speaker 00 You know what they call that? Feeding the trolls.
46:23 Speaker 01 Probably, yeah.
46:24 Speaker 00 Right.
46:24 Speaker 01 But I didn't, I didn't know what else to do. They love it, yeah.
46:27 Speaker 00 They love attention.
46:28 Speaker 01 Absolutely love it.
46:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, so if you.
46:30 Speaker 01 But the press were just as bad. Do you remember the Sun used to do that thing where they'd, they'd get a picture of a sebri and they'd put like a monster next to it and liken them to some sort of horrific like character from a movie or something like that.
46:41 Speaker 00 Right.
46:42 Speaker 01 And they did that with her as well, I remember that in one interview and showed it to us.
46:47 Speaker 00 Yeah.
46:48 Speaker 01 To see what their reaction would be.
46:49 Speaker 00 Really?
46:49 Speaker 01 Hmm.
46:50 Speaker 00 What did we think of, uh, Jessie's single, Boys?
46:56 Speaker 01 Louis.
46:58 Speaker 00 We don't have to touch this.
46:59 Speaker 01 Well, um.
47:01 Speaker 00 Because it was criticised because it was, she was accused of the quote as black fishing.
47:04 Speaker 01 Yes.
47:05 Speaker 00 Which is a very sort of 2024 term. The idea was that she was a sort of role playing
47:12 Speaker 00 an, I saw racial identity that wasn't hers.
47:16 Speaker 01 Um, what's your take on it?
47:19 Speaker 00 You've just, you've batted it back at me.
47:23 Speaker 00 Uh. Well, I suppose if you go by my theory of, well, look at what the comments say and that's sort of what people think. It feels like it wasn't that well liked.
47:35 Speaker 01 Hmm. Holding someone to account, to be accountable for themselves is fine. But taking it further than that, I don't think is fine.
47:44 Speaker 00 And I think you've said in the past that you, someone said, I think it was you that maybe someone reached out to her privately to express a few things about the song.
47:53 Speaker 01 Uh, no, not about the song.
47:54 Speaker 00 About the video?
47:55 Speaker 01 When we were together, yeah.
47:57 Speaker 00 Right.
47:57 Speaker 01 It was that, that, um, topic was brought up.
48:02 Speaker 00 With her?
48:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, that's all really.
48:11 Speaker 01 You wait for me to fill the silence?
48:13 Speaker 00 No, I was just ritching. I don't know if that was my awkward silence or your awkward silence.
48:17 Speaker 01 I actually really enjoy an awkward silence, so we could do it for a long time if you want.
48:21 Speaker 00 That was fine. I don't think we needed more than that.
48:51 Speaker 00 You know, when you did your, you did, your first solo performance post Little Mix allegedly was on Jules Holland.
48:57 Speaker 01 Yes.
48:57 Speaker 00 Is that right?
48:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:58 Speaker 00 And one of the comments was, "She can't stop smiling", and it was true, like, you looked very happy.
49:05 Speaker 01 Did you watch it?
49:06 Speaker 00 Yeah, I did. I watched both, because there were two, weren't there?
49:09 Speaker 01 Yes.
49:09 Speaker 00 You did "Angel of My Dreams" and "Fantasy", and I watched both. And it's, you really did seem happy to be there.
49:15 Speaker 01 I was really happy to be there.
49:17 Speaker 00 Go on, what would you want to say about that?
49:19 Speaker 01 Well, it was my first proper performance of, any of my own music, so that was really special. But also being on the Jules Holland show is like...
49:28 Speaker 00 Because it's music, right?
49:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it meant a lot to be asked on that show because they're quite picky, aren't they? Like, like you say, it's the music show, isn't it? So, you know, only artists get to go on it and they have to, you know, Jules himself has to approve and...
49:45 Speaker 00 He played, didn't he?
49:46 Speaker 01 Yes.
49:46 Speaker 00 He played the intro to "Angel of My Dreams", it was beautiful.
49:48 Speaker 01 It was, it was really amazing. So that was like a pinch me moment, you know, I grew up watching his shows and especially like the Hootenanny performances every New Year. So it was on my bucket list to get to do it, so I was literally beaming to be there. And he was so lovely to me. He still, we chat nearly every week now. He'll like FaceTime me or he'll give me a call. We've formed a lovely sort of friendship off the back of it, so...
50:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was a really special occasion for me. And just to play my own songs for the first time was like amazing, you know, they obviously mean a lot, mean a lot to me.
50:24 Speaker 00 When does your album come out?
50:26 Speaker 01 At the minute, I reckon it's coming out around May.
50:31 Speaker 00 May.
50:32 Speaker 01 I think so. It was gonna be a bit earlier, but I think it's been pushed back.
50:35 Speaker 00 How much pressure do you feel?
50:37 Speaker 01 Not as much as you probably think. I think, um, with my own music, I deliberately took quite a large break between Little Mix and my own stuff because I think I needed time to like re,
50:55 Speaker 01 re-evaluate what success was for me. Um, I didn't wanna go into my own stuff chasing a hit or like, yeah, feeling like it has to be huge all the time or it has to be as big as Little Mix because I think I would just be setting myself up for a fall that way. Um, so I took the time out to just be like, just make music that you really love, hon. And then whatever happens, happens. So no, I don't feel an enormous amount of pressure. I'm just proud of it. And I'm hoping I can get on stage and do my own shows, however small or big they are. I don't care. I just wanna perform.
51:36 Speaker 00 We should, I know we, we haven't got very long.
51:39 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
51:39 Speaker 00 Well, I've got as long as you like, but I've told that you have to finish quite soon.
51:43 Speaker 01 I can go over a little bit.
51:44 Speaker 00 We normally talk a little bit about, um, kind of growing up and stuff. I feel like South Shields is, is important to you and you, you, you tap in there, I think, from time to time, do you? How often?
51:56 Speaker 01 Whenever I can, really. If I get the odd weekend off, I'll go home, see all my family.
52:01 Speaker 00 Your mum and dad are up there?
52:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:03 Speaker 00 They're divorced?
52:04 Speaker 01 Yes.
52:04 Speaker 00 Was that a big deal when they split up?
52:07 Speaker 01 Um, it was a relief, to be honest.
52:10 Speaker 00 Was it? Was there quite a lot of arguing?
52:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, I was. Sixteen, when they broke up and I think I was on holiday with a boyfriend at the time. I got back and I got back in the house and my mum was like, oh, your dad's not here anymore. We've broke up. I was like, oh, right then. That was that.
52:26 Speaker 00 Really?
52:26 Speaker 01 I mean, I'm sure this happens all the time. If you grow up in a house where you don't really see like a loving relationship or you see parents arguing all the time, whatever, you'd rather they just weren't together. And I remember my mum saying when it happened, you know, we wanted to stay together for the kids. Like, we wanted to make sure we stay together till you were old enough. And I was like, mum, I wish you'd just done it straight away.
52:47 Speaker 00 Really?
52:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was one of them ones. And as a grown up now, I'm like, oh, wow, because now I'm in such a loving relationship. I wish they could have had more of that.
52:56 Speaker 00 Kids need to see it too. They need to see, um, parents that love each other. I think have a sort of model for what healthy, a healthy relationship looks like, ideally.
53:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think I was quite cold in relationships for a long time, yeah, off the back of that. But I think there was love there.
53:11 Speaker 00 When you were just out with Harry, so you were being quite cold.
53:13 Speaker 01 Oh, no, don't, no.
53:14 Speaker 00 You did say.
53:15 Speaker 01 It was, it was one time.
53:16 Speaker 00 Did you go out with all of One Direction?
53:18 Speaker 01 No, no, don't do that.
53:19 Speaker 00 Isn't there a gay one?
53:21 Speaker 01 No, no, I thought, don't, you're, you're very good at this, but no.
53:26 Speaker 00 In every boy band, they say there's one gay one. That's something that.
53:29 Speaker 01 That's true, actually, yeah.
53:30 Speaker 00 One of the guys in blue, Duncan, said, in every boy band, there's always a gay one. And then he goes, and for a long time I thought it was Lee.
53:38 Speaker 01 Brilliant.
53:39 Speaker 00 That was a good line.
53:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was good, and, um, but I had, you know, I had a pretty great, a great childhood, to be honest. I was always around my grandad Mohammed. That's where the whole Yemeni culture comes in, so, um. Yeah, we were still a very tight-knit family. I'm still really close to my dad and my mum.
53:59 Speaker 00 Is your mum Muslim?
54:00 Speaker 01 No.
54:01 Speaker 00 Really?
54:01 Speaker 01 No, my grandad was Muslim.
54:03 Speaker 00 Grandad was Muslim, but didn't raise her in the faith?
54:06 Speaker 01 No, it was, it was kind of East as East vibes.
54:10 Speaker 00 The movie?
54:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:11 Speaker 00 I've never seen it, to be honest with you.
54:13 Speaker 01 It's probably very problematic now, watching it back, but we, you know, I guess that when it came out, everyone related to it. So we'd get called the, like, you know, East as East family and stuff. But I think my grandad, he was Muslim, but he didn't necessarily like push that on to his children. I think he just wanted them to decide for themselves, but also, it's funny, we always joke about it because obviously he's called Mohammed, but he named all his children like Brenda, Alan, Michael, Norma.
54:40 Speaker 00 Did he?
54:41 Speaker 01 Yeah. I think you just wanted them to
54:44 Speaker 00 assimilate.
54:44 Speaker 01 fit in, yeah, as much as they could. And I think they did that as well, like me and my mum. Growing up, we very rarely spoke about like racism or, you know, the, the culture, our heritage. It was like she'd sort of put a block on it to try and fit in to a town like South Shields, because she'd obviously had a lot of struggles being a dark skinned woman in a town like that.
55:08 Speaker 00 Yeah.
55:08 Speaker 01 So we never really spoke about it until the BLM movement happened and then we were kind of forced to. And we've been speaking about it ever since, which is better.
55:18 Speaker 00 More engaged with it and more public, public facing with it.
55:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:23 Speaker 00 You mentioned, this is quite heavy, but we'll try. So you mentioned having anorexia, right? Which is a serious mental condition. It's got the highest death rate, basically, of any mental illness.
55:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:34 Speaker 00 Are you all right to just talk about that for a second?
55:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't mind.
55:36 Speaker 00 I mean, what, what, I, I made a programme once about people struggling with anorexia and what was striking was there's a lot of misconceptions about it. And what struck me anyway was that people think, oh, it's about people who look at too many fashion magazines and they aspire to look like that. Maybe that's true for some people, but what I took was actually it's not necessarily about looking a certain way, it's about control.
55:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, a hundred percent.
55:59 Speaker 00 And dealing with anxiety by, by having the utmost unhealthy level of control over your, your, your intake of food, basically, and also exercise.
56:09 Speaker 01 A hundred percent.
56:10 Speaker 00 Would you agree with that? What was your experience? And I, I suppose more, because, you know, you have to talk about it carefully, but I'm curious to know what made you better as well, like in what, in what respect you found different interventions helpful.
56:22 Speaker 01 And so I think I started becoming anorexic when I was like 13, maybe. And it carried on until I was 18. And I was in a hospital with it, I think.
56:34 Speaker 00 Were you at your hospital?
56:35 Speaker 01 Not as an inpatient.
56:36 Speaker 00 Or clinic?
56:37 Speaker 01 More as an, yeah, like clinic, like as an outpatient.
56:39 Speaker 00 Right.
56:40 Speaker 01 I think, I think the first time I went into hospital, I was scared of having to stay there and that was the kickstart into changing stuff, but, um, yeah, nothing to do with how I looked at all. Everything to do with having.
56:55 Speaker 01 Some sort of control of my life. Cause you know, my, my mum and dad were arguing a lot. My granddad had just died and he was like my best friend, so I felt like I'd lost a part of myself when he left. I was getting bullied at school.
57:10 Speaker 00 Bulled for anything in particular or over anything?
57:12 Speaker 01 Mainly because of, because of the colour of my skin.
57:14 Speaker 00 Really?
57:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, I went to a very white Catholic secondary school. And that was a shock to the system because I'd, my primary school where my mum worked actually, there was like thirty six different languages. So much culture and diversity. And then I went from that into
57:31 Speaker 00 Yeah.
57:32 Speaker 01 This Catholic school and I was the only person out of my primary school that went there, so from the jump I was like friendless.
57:39 Speaker 00 Yeah.
57:40 Speaker 01 And bless me mum, she put me in that school because it was like the better one. And ironically, it like, you know, was the toughest, but um. So yeah, I think all that stuff was going on and I felt like uh controlling what I put in my body was like powerful because I, I could decide that, do you know what I mean? And I hid it for a very long time, I'd wear a lot of like baggy clothes and I didn't want people to know about it. Um, and then I obviously got out of hand. My mum took me to hospital and, um. And then I started like recovery. I had a friend as well who, I, I guess I almost like trauma bonded with who had the same
58:22 Speaker 01 thing but worse, her anorexia was, was worse to an extent and she actually did go into hospital for it and stayed there. And I think that scared me as well. And I think my family had been so distracted with their dramas and issues, they didn't realise what was going on with me. And then when they did realise, uh it was really heartbreaking seeing the response from like my dad, my mum, like everyone was so devastated and I think that. Also kickstarted me in into wanting to make a change because I didn't realise it would hurt everyone that much. I think for a long time I thought if I just like literally shriveled away, no one would notice.
59:06 Speaker 01 So, yeah. And then I think the main thing that made me better was auditioning for X Factor. Because I knew I couldn't do it if I was still poorly. I went and asked the doctor if I was allowed to go and audition. Because I'd made a lot of progress. They'd had the whole intervention where they'd sat me down and be like, if you keep doing this, you're gonna die and blah, blah, blah. And at that point, to be honest, I wasn't really that bothered. But then when I was gonna audition for the show again.
59:38 Speaker 01 I think I just thought, and my brother said this, well, he was like, this could really change your life if it works out for the better and you deserve that. And so I asked if I could do it and they were like, if you can promise us you'll keep us up to date with, you know, your diet and all that stuff. Then you can do it.
59:57 Speaker 01 And so I did and then I got better. I think I didn't even realise at the time, but when we spoke earlier about that period where I was really depressed. I was anorexic again, but I didn't even realise that I was, to be honest. I just sort of fell into it.
1:00:12 Speaker 01 So it's actually really weird for me now because I feel so far removed from that person. And now when I see any negative comments, like the last two, I mean, the girls did up until now. The majority of the negative comments I receive are about me putting weight on. Which I find really strange because I'm like the healthiest I've ever been. So it's quite ironic. It does live with me forever. I think, that's again, that's why I find the comments really bizarre. My fans know that history, so bless them. They always leap to my defence when anyone like says I'm fat or. Like there was a wedding that I went to, was it this year? God, I can't remember. Where everyone thought I was pregnant because I was bloated.
1:00:53 Speaker 01 And like obviously stuff like that is very triggering for someone that's, you know, had a history of anorexia. So I really have to battle that sometimes with people's comments.
1:01:05 Speaker 01 I did go to like a, um, I guess a sort of rehab facility a few years ago for people with eating disorders and.
1:01:13 Speaker 00 To speak to them.
1:01:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, and that was really amazing actually because I think it might help me if I'd seen other people struggling, like a group of people and knowing how to get through that together or relating to someone and, um, and all that stuff.
1:01:30 Speaker 00 I think it can go both ways.
1:01:33 Speaker 01 Well, yeah, like I say, you can, you can trauma bond for sure, you can, yeah.
1:01:36 Speaker 00 Or even become competitive.
1:01:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's all, that's definitely, that can be a part of it as well, but it was really, um, it was nice to sit with the majority girls there, show them that it doesn't always have to be like that, or you can come out of the other end of that, do you know what I mean? Help them see that there's a future where they can be healthier.
1:01:59 Speaker 00 You just now, maybe I misheard you, it sounded like you said you were told that you, if you carried on you would die and you said you wouldn't have been that bothered.
1:02:07 Speaker 01 Not at the time, no. I, I just think I was obviously, I just, I was in that headspace where I wasn't fussed either way, I think.
1:02:17 Speaker 00 Because you didn't believe that that would happen or it just felt like life had lost its importance for you and stuff?
1:02:24 Speaker 01 I think I was, I was such an anxious person, like even just going into school would like fill me with fear and not even necessarily because of, you know, by that point I wasn't being bullied as much or whatever. I was probably even becoming popular because I'd already auditioned for like X Factor before, so I was like the girl that could sing. Um, but I think I just didn't want to feel like that anymore and I was happy sort of wasting away, which is a very unhealthy mindset to have. And I think I did become, well, obviously I wasn't eating well, so I was very irritable, I was snappy, I was moody, so everything was like a defence mechanism at that point. And I don't think it's until you're really confronted with that or you have this sort
1:03:06 Speaker 01 of intervention that you realise the, the damage that you're doing to yourself and other people.
1:03:12 Speaker 00 Right, because you're not thinking clearly.
1:03:14 Speaker 01 No.
1:03:15 Speaker 00 Because you're calorie starved.
1:03:17 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:03:18 Speaker 00 And so literally your mind isn't working right.
1:03:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, as a teenager as well, you know, hormones and.
1:03:23 Speaker 00 And your hormones, you've got a lot going on.
1:03:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, periods and it stopped and all that stuff, so yeah.
1:03:27 Speaker 00 We're going to coast out of this on something more positive.
1:03:31 Speaker 01 Yes, yeah.
1:03:32 Speaker 00 What's it going to be?
1:03:35 Speaker 00 When's your next single coming out? Do you know when it's coming out?
1:03:40 Speaker 01 When's my next single coming out? Well, I've got a song coming out on the 10th of January. I just like dropping music because sometimes there's quite a big gap between singles and I don't like that, so...
1:03:50 Speaker 00 Will you do a video for it?
1:03:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, there is a video.
1:03:52 Speaker 00 Or just a visualizer?
1:03:54 Speaker 01 Well, it's a visualizer, but I don't like...
1:03:55 Speaker 00 That's a term I learnt last week.
1:03:56 Speaker 01 Yes, but I think everything I do is quite extra. I don't like doing anything that's not got the kitchen sink thrown in, so... The visualizer is pretty much a music video. So that's coming out. We're gonna see how that goes, but my official next single is out in February. My boyfriend always tells me that this is my bonus round now, which I think is a lovely way of putting it. He's like, Jade, you've clocked it already. You did Little Mix, like, I clocked the pop game.
1:04:25 Speaker 00 That's a good way of putting it.
1:04:26 Speaker 01 So now it's just bonus level, just doing what I want and having fun with it. So that is literally how I treat my music. I write about things that I wanna write about. I don't care if it works for radio or not or all those industry things. I just do what I love.
1:04:43 Speaker 01 And that's enough.
1:04:58 Speaker 00 Okay, here I am, back. Did you enjoy that? I did. What a nice person. And what a helpful and revealing insight into the way the pop industry works. Thank you, Jade, for all of that. So I was aware we spoke unguardedly, or maybe just candidly, about reality shows, X Factor in particular. It's worth saying, several other contestants have spoken out about struggling with their mental health and contracts that they regarded as exploitative over the years. In response, a spokesperson for the X Factor said in 2021, "Duty of care to our contestants is of the utmost importance to us. We take welfare very seriously and have measures in place to ensure that they are supported."
1:05:42 Speaker 00 I also know Simon Cowell a little bit. I don't think it's awkward. Like, I think Simon Cowell's the kind of person who takes a... grown-up view of the way TV is made and is open about the fact that there's good and bad associated with being in the music industry and in being part of a...
1:06:05 Speaker 00 Of a reality show like The X Factor. He said to me, in fact, when I interviewed him for my series Boy Bands Forever. I think there was a litany of of things that could happen. Maybe I presented them or some of the other people were talking about them. Some of the boys that had been in the boy bands. And he said, if you don't want that, be an accountant.
1:06:28 Speaker 00 Which is another perspective, right? We, I mean, there's some truth in that as well.
1:06:34 Speaker 00 Worth saying as well that Jessie Nelson has responded to criticism of the alleged black fishing in her video for Boys, her solo single, saying, my intention is never to offend people of colour with this video in my song. I'm very aware that I'm a white British woman. I've never said that I wasn't.
1:06:55 Speaker 00 It's interesting to think about any kind of fishing that I might have done. Do you know I have done a kind of fishing? This isn't a set of like, yeah, fly fishing. No, I think I've possibly vegetarian fished. I think I've given the illusion of being a vegetarian on social media. And in fact, I admire vegetarians. I would like to be one, but I'm not one.
1:07:22 Speaker 00 Guilty as charged. If you fished intentionally or unintentionally, please email me and let me know what kind of fishing you've been doing. If you've been affected by the topics discussed in this episode, Spotify do have a website for information and resources. Visit spotify.com/resources. And if you're listening to the podcast as opposed to watching it, you can watch some clips of the episodes over on my YouTube channel, at Official Louis Theroux, as well as Much Else Besides. I'm taking over YouTube. I think I almost have a thousand subs.
1:08:02 Speaker 00 That's not a joke. So smash that like button.
1:08:09 Speaker 00 I'm kind of fishing now, I'm YouTuber fishing? Or baiting? I think that might be it. Oh yes, credits! The producer was Millie Chu, the assistant producer was Amelia Gill, the production manager was Francesca Basset, and the executive producer was Aaron Fellows. The music in this series was by Miguel de Oliveira. This is a Mindhouse Production for Spotify.
Previous S4 EP1: Willem Dafoe on collaborating with Lars Von Trier, being buried alive, and his 'distinctive face’ Next S4 EP3: Jamie Oliver on public feuds, chopping his finger off on live TV, and his controversial jerk rice Page updated November 5, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated