Little Mix say they don’t want to be a ‘guilty pleasure’ act.
Little Mix released their fifth studio album this week and have been reflecting on coming “so far” from their days on The X Factor.
Made up of Jesy Nelson, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards, the four piece triumphed on the ITV show seven years ago now.
Speaking at an event for Apple Music to launch their album, Jesy said: “I feel like there’s a stigma that girl bands are, what do they call it? A guilty pleasure.
“I don’t want to be someone’s guilty bloody pleasure. We’re very bloody talented actually.”
Discussing the new record, Perrie added: “We’ve literally poured our hearts and souls into this album. It’s very honest, very real, very sassy.”
Jade agreed: “We’ve come so far, the fact that it’s been seven years, it’s pretty unheard of.”
Meanwhile, the group have revealed the pressure they felt after first winning The X Factor.
In an interview with The Times, Jade recalled: “When we [won], I just decided I’d be a famous pop star from now on and life would be easy. I never for a moment thought about what it was like to be scrutinised 24/7.”
“The moment you come off The X Factor, you have to be on every TV channel, do every interview,” Jesy added. “We won, we saw our mums and dads for two minutes, and the producers took us into this room and said, ‘This is your manager.’ The next morning we were up at two for Lorraine. We had a second to think, then it was glam time. It was stressful.”
And Perrie candidly confessed: “You literally don’t have a moment to take it in. We went back to the hotel and I said to Jade, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this’. I had just seen me mam and I felt really young; I didn’t feel I should be taken away from her.
“I started to panic. And everyone was going at me, ‘Well, it’s a bit late now’.”
Little Mix’s album LM5 is out now.
More on: The X Factor
