Jesy Nelson has confessed she feared staying in Little Mix would have left her feeling suicidal again as life in the pop group took a heavy toll on her mental health.
The singer quit the band last year and she's now opened up about her heartbreaking decision to leave in a candid interview with Cosmopolitan magazine.
Jesy says she knew things had changed and she hit "breaking point" when she went back to work after lockdown, filming the group's video for their track Sweet Melody.
She's been dreading going back to work and went on an extreme diet to lose the weight she'd gained at the start of the pandemic.
After joining the others for the shoot, she had a panic attack on set and ended up sobbing in her dressing room, and that was when she realised staying with the pop group could leave her on the verge of suicide again.
In the Cosmo interview, Jesy explained: "The last music video we did was the breaking point.
"We'd been in lockdown, and it was the first 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. I immediately became a different person...
"I had a panic attack and broke down. I was like, 'I just want to go home.'
"I was sobbing in the dressing room. Someone really close to me said, ‘This has got to stop. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You’re going to end up where you were before.'"
Jesy previously opened up about a suicide attempt in her critically-acclaimed BBC documentary Jesy Nelson: Odd One Out admitting trolling left her feeling like she didn't want to live any more.
She has now admitted leaving the band was the best decision for her mental health and is now able to take care of herself.
The singer added: "For me that [the music video panic attack] was the pinnacle point. I was like, 'I need to start taking care of myself now because this isn’t healthy.'
"It wasn’t nice for the other three to be around someone who didn’t want to be there. So I took a break.
"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 because I know I would have ended up back where I was five years ago, and that’s scary…"
Since leaving the band, Jesy says she's finally found her happy place, she added to Cosmo: "I didn't know that I could be this happy.
"I thought when I was in the group that it was just normal to feel that way. And because I’d felt like that for 10 years I just thought, 'this is life.' Since I've left, I feel free."
The June issue of Cosmopolitan is on sale from May 6
If you're struggling and need to talk, the Samaritans operates a free helpline open 24/7 on 116 123. Alternatively, you can email Jo@samaritans.org if you'd prefer to write down how you feel. You are not alone.
