There’s still some lingering bad blood between Jesy Nelson and the other members of Little Mix.
“We don’t talk, and haven’t done for a long time,” Perrie Edwards told Cosmopolitan U.K. in an interview published on Thursday, July 11. “It’s really sad, it’s heartbreaking. But sometimes these things happen, and people decide they want to part ways, and that’s absolutely fine.”
Edwards, 31, and Nelson, 33, were paired together with Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall on U.K.’s The X Factor in 2011 to form what became Little Mix. After nearly a decade together, Nelson announced her departure from the group in 2020.
“I would rather it went differently, but you can’t control how things go,” Edwards continued. Edwards, Pinnock, 32, and Thirlwall, 31, made music together as Little Mix until the group announced a hiatus in May 2022. Edwards, Pinnock and Thirlwall have since kicked off solo music careers.
During Thursday’s interview, Edwards looked back at Little Mix as “the happiest time of my life.”
“All we did was laugh together, banter together, cry together,” she continued. “It was so much fun. Yes, we went through a lot in those 10 years, but we had each other.”
When news of Nelson’s departure broke in 2020, the remaining three members of Little Mix publicly supported their former bandmate. When Nelson released her first solo single in October 2021 — titled “Boyz” and featuring Nicki Minaj — she was accused of “Blackfishing” in the music video by internet commenters. Blackfishing is a term for the appropriation of Black aesthetics and appearance by white people. Minaj came to her collaborator’s defense, but eagle-eyed fans noticed that the Little Mix ladies unfollowed Nelson on Instagram following the controversy.
The rapper accused Edwards, Pinnock and Thirlwall of being jealous during an Instagram Live at the time. While Minaj did not call them out by name, fans read between the lines.
That same month, Pinnock celebrated her 30th birthday and appeared to address the drama while speaking to partygoers. “I know my character, you know my character, anyone that meets me knows my f–king character,” she could be heard saying in a video from the event.
Nelson later shared that she and members of Little Mix are “not talking anymore,” during an October 2021 appearance on the Graham Norton Show, noting there is “no bad blood” on her side.
“I still love them to pieces and genuinely wish them all the best,” she said. “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. To me, they are still the sickest girl band in the world.”
Edwards, Pinnock and Thirlwall then addressed the apparent drama.
“We don’t really want to dwell, because we have so much to celebrate as a three,” Thirlwall told The Telegraph in October 2021. “We’ve dealt with it in the best way that we know how and got each other through it. We don’t want to talk about the video, or be critical, but one thing we will clarify regarding the blackfishing situation is that Jesy was approached by the group in a very friendly, educational manner.”
