Leigh-Anne Pinnock says all three members of Little Mix secretly sought therapy after Jesy Nelson’s decision to quit the group.
The 32-year-old singer said Jesy’s abrupt exit from the band in December 2020 left her, Perrie Edwards, 30, and Jade Thirlwall, 30, “traumatized” and in need of counseling sessions.
In an extract from her upcoming autobiography Believe, out Wednesday (Oct. 25), and which was obtained by The Sun, she says: “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.”
Before Jesy’s exit, Little Mix were inseparable for almost a decade, and became the biggest girl group since Spice Girls, selling millions of records and achieving five U.K. No. 1s.
At the time she quit Jesy said she was struggling with her mental health and struggles with the pressures of fame.
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 before 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 the band were due to perform.
The band are now on a break, with Leigh-Anne now carving out a solo career.
She adds in her book: “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.”