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Jesy Nelson reveals she made ‘secret suicide attempt’ in new documentary
Jesy Nelson has opened up about a previously unknown attempt to take her own life before she quit Little Mix.
The 34-year-old exited the hit girl group – also comprised of Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall – in 2020, citing her mental health as the reason for her shock departure nine years after the band first formed on X Factor.
Now, in a new docuseries on Amazon Prime Video – Jesy Nelson: Life After Little Mix – Boyz singer had shed further light on the depths her mental health had plunged to, which ultimately led to her leaving.
Feeling that no one in the band ‘cared’ about her, the music artist revealed for the first time that she attempted suicide through an overdose and was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.
Explaining how the rest of the band made her feel, she said: ‘I basically just sat everyone down and I just explained how I was feeling.
‘I just felt like no-one cared… And I remember one of their responses being like “are you done now, is that it?”‘
Recounting the interaction through tears, she continued: ‘I was like “okay” and she was like “can I go now?” I remember feeling like “whoa” and that just made me feel alone and like there’s no point to this, no-one cares.’
Suspecting her daughter was in a very dark place, her mum Janice desperately tried to contact Jesy.
Recalling the entire incident for the first time, she said: ‘A few days before she had just been down, really down, and not talking much, and I think she was seeing horrible things written about her again.
‘She just wanted to be on her own quite a lot, I just got a gut feeling that something wasn’t right and so I kept ringing and ringing and then I wasn’t getting no answer.
‘Eventually she answered the phone, but she was talking really slurry and then I could just hear the phone drop, and then I didn’t hear anything else. I knew she’d done something. An ambulance was called, we went to hospital with her.’
This is not the first time Jesy has almost died by suicide. She also overdosed in 2013 when she reached a low point after a performance on the X Factor.
Opening up about what drove her to that point, she told the Fearne Cotton Happy Place podcast in 2021 that she ‘physically couldn’t tolerate the pain anymore’.
Recounting the circumstances around her overdose, she added: ‘I just remember obviously the first time, so obviously I’d taken an overdose. I went into hospital and then I had a music video like a week after…’
Mum Janice was ‘distraught’ and tried to intervene at the time.
As Jesy shared: ‘She was like: “This is it, you’re not doing this anymore”. Because my mum’s the kind of mum that’s like, “I couldn’t give a s**t what you do as long as you’re happy…
“That’s all I care about”, So she was like, “No. This isn’t happening anymore….” And obviously I didn’t know what to do at the time because it was very early stages of Little Mix as well.’
The past year has been another tough one for Jesy, after she revealed her twins had been diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Their prognosis means they could ‘never walk’ or potentially not even survive to their third birthday.
Jesy welcomed the twins – Ocean Jade and Story Monroe – prematurely in May last year alongside her partner, Zion Foster.
Since the news broke of the twins’ condition earlier this year, however, Jesy and Zion have reportedly ended their relationship and continue to co-parent.
Metro had reached out to Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thrilwall for comment.
Jesy Nelson: Life After Little Mix is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video now.
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