Entertainment
Little Mix’s rep calls Jesy Nelson Instagram live a ‘backfire’ and encourages fans to watch Leigh-Anne’s racism documentary
Jesy has gone solo (Picture: Little Mix/YouTube/Vevo
Little Mix’s representative appears to have hit out at Jesy Nelson, following her Instagram live with Nicki Minaj last night.
Jesy, who left Little Mix after nine years in the band in December 2020, released her debut solo single Boyz featuring Nicki Minaj last week, and went on Instagram live on Monday night to promote the song.
However, the stream descended into major drama as Nicki, 38, referenced unverified DMs purported to be sent by Leigh-Anne Pinnock to an influencer which called Jesy ‘horrible’, and accused her of blackfishing and cutting off her bandmates.
At some points during Nicki’s rant, in which she called Leigh-Anne, 30, ‘jealous’ and a ‘f***ing clown’, Jesy, also 30, was seen laughing.
PR Simon Jones, who counts Little Mix among his clients, seemingly addressed the controversy on his Instagram stories.
He wrote: ‘What a backfire’, before sharing a screengrab of Leigh-Anne’s BBC Three documentary Race, Pop & Power, in which she confronted her experiences of racism while in Little Mix.
Jones suggested fans rewatch Leigh-Anne’s documentary (Picture: Instagram)
Jones added: ‘Anyway. Go watch this documentary again.’
Leigh-Anne, Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards have yet to address the drama.
During the Instagram live, Jesy admitted that her deep tan was brought up by Leigh-Anne on the set of the video for Sweet Melody, the last single Jesy worked on with the group.
She said: ‘I never ever would want to offend anyone. I just want to spread love and celebrate this, because this is a f***ing great song. The video is so iconic and I wanted to pay homage to Diddy as well because that’s such an iconic video. He loved it, he saw the video and he accepted it, he didn’t have a problem with it.
‘It’s just hard for me, because like you said, I was in a group with two women of colour for nine years and it was never brought up to me up until the last music video I did with them, when she messaged me and said, “Jesy, I just want to make you aware that…”’
The former X Factor winner also defended herself and said that her look was down to tanning easily and having naturally curly hair.
The chat went viral (Picture: Instagram)
Jesy said: ‘I want people to know that when I was in the video with [Nicki], I didn’t even have any fake tan on. I’d been in Antigua prior to that for three weeks, and I’m just really lucky as a white girl that when I’m in the sun, I tan so dark. Leigh-Anne even said to me in the group, “are you sure you’re not mixed race, because you go darker than me in the sun, it’s crazy”.
More: Little Mix
‘I wanted to come on this live today and show everyone that my hair is naturally curly, I’ve always had curly hair, I got it from my dad. In this industry, if you keep putting s*** on your hair and damaging it, I’m gonna have no hair left and that’s the way I was going. So I wanted to get a wig that emulated the same texture as my hair, and I genuinely didn’t think I was doing anything wrong because I’ve got naturally curly hair.’
Jesy and her former bandmates have not spoken since she left the band, with Jesy yet to meet Leigh-Anne’s twins and Perrie’s son Axel after both popstars gave birth in August.
Metro.co.uk has contacted Jones for comment.
MORE : Everything said in that explosive Jesy Nelson and Nicki Minaj Instagram live
