Former Little Mix member Jesy Nelson has opened up about her decision to leave the British pop group late last year, describing the ways performing in the group was negatively impacting her mental health.
In a new interview with Cosmopolitan, the singer revealed that filming the video for 2020 Confetti single ‘Sweet Melody’ prompted her exit from the group, describing it as her “breaking point.”
“We’d been in lockdown, and [that had been] the first time time I could have a break and be at home around people that I love. It was the happiest I’d ever felt, and I didn’t realise that until I went back to work,” Nelson said.
“I immediately became a different person. I had anxiety. Whenever we had a music video, I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to try and lose weight. I have a fear of looking back on the camera. If I don’t like what I see, I find it so hard to be in front of the camera and feel amazing and perform.”
Jesy Nelson reveals that being on set of the music video for “Sweet Melody” after lockdown was her breaking point:
“I immediately became a different person. I had anxiety. Whenever we had a music video, I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to try and lose weight.” pic.twitter.com/Z9lzftSC3u
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) May 4, 2021
Nelson goes on to say that when she was informed that filming would commence for the ‘Sweet Melody’ video in a matter of weeks, she “panicked.”
“I went on this extreme diet, with bloody shakes, and tried to eat as little as possible. On the day of the ‘Sweet Melody’ video I had a panic attack on set because I didn’t look how I wanted to look and I found it so hard to just be happy and enjoy myself,” she said.
After “sobbing in the dressing room” during the shoot, Nelson says she was advised by a close friend to quit. Nelson announced her departure from Little Mix in December of last year, citing the pressure of being in the group and the toll it was taking on her mental health.
“For so long I worried about other people and letting people down. The only person I should have been trying to make happy was myself and I wasn’t doing that. I needed to do it for my mental health,” Nelson explains in the new interview.
Nelson is now planning to release solo music, while Little Mix have continued on as a three-piece.
