From sisters to strangers: Jesy Nelson on painful Little Mix fallout

Jesy Nelson emerged from The X Factor in 2011 and later joined the group girl Little Mix.

Although she formed sisterly bond with her bandmates, Jesy Nelson has confessed they were not no in contact with one another after she abruptly quit the band following a secret suicide attempt in 2020.

The singer, 34, who recently separated from her fiancé Zion Foster, revealed the painful decision to leave the group and her her final interaction with remaining band-members Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall in her raw and honest Amazon Prime documentary series, Jesy Nelson: Life After Little Mix. 

Before I had a discussion with the girls I had to think about where I am legally - like, can I even come out of it now?' she recalled.

'Unfortunately, the lawyer ended up letting them know that I wanted to leave, before I could let them know, so I think they felt really hurt by that, and it should never have played out like that.

'I feel mad that that was taken away from me, and I didn't get an opportunity to explain why I couldn't do this anymore.' 

She added: 'Mentally, I'd got myself ready and I was like, 'Right , I want to sit down with the girls now and I want to chat to them and tell them why I did what I did, and how I've been feeling, and just really explain to them, and try to make them understand how I was feeling.'

'And then my manager called, and she was like, 'So, I've spoken to the girls, and they are happy to chat with you, but they don't feel comfortable being in a room with you unless there's a therapist there.'

'I was like, 'What? I've just come out of hospital, this is the time I need you the most.' I didn't feel like they were my sisters. It's been five years now; everytime I think about it I'm like, 'Was it them, or was it the management?' I will never know that because we never got to have that conversation.

'And then eventually there was a phone call, and it was really awkward. It was just so weird because it was like talking to strangers.

'It was the most uncomfortable phone call I've ever had, no one knew what to say, and that was the last time I ever spoke to them as a group.'

Despite the stilted farewell, mother-of-two Nelson says parenthood - both Edwards and Pinnock have also welcomed children - helped bring them back together as friends.