Little Mix star Perrie: ‘If I'm naked it's because I want to be naked'

Telegraph

2 days ago

'I wouldn't know where to start with that one!' flinches Perrie Edwards when I ask what she makes of Bonnie Blue, the porn star who claimed to have sex with 1,057 men in a single day in an attempt to set a world record. The former Little Mix singer wrestles an expression of horror into one of neutrality before calmly reminding me that 'I'm not one to judge'.
Although newspaper readers lap up celebrities' takes on current controversies, it can feel cruel asking them to put their opinions on the record. Unlike in a normal conversation – where you can think aloud and change your mind later – giving the 'wrong' answer to a journalist can be career ending for a pop star, retweeted ad infinitum online.
So I feel for the warm, likeable Edwards. The 32-year-old from South Shields says she's 'knees deep' in childcare and redecorating while also preparing to release her debut solo album. She shudders at the thought of 'awkward conversations, conflict and confrontations', so much so that – even after 13 years of relentless restyling for the cameras – she still can't muster the courage to tell a hairdresser she's unhappy with a cut.
Her publicist has given advance warning that she will not discuss her former bandmate Jesy Nelson with me today; they haven't spoken since Nelson walked out of Little Mix in 2020. However, Edwards remains close to Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall.
'My agoraphobia got so bad I could barely leave the house'
She has been open about her 'crippling' anxiety – still evident when I raise tricky subjects with her today. 'When I'm on stage being a pop star I'm fully in my element: brave and empowered,' she explains. 'But as soon as I'm back home behind closed doors, that's when the anxiety kicks in and I'm just me again.'
Despite having 'quite a thick skin when it comes to online comments about my appearance or my clothes', Edwards says she can't help but 'catastrophise about the everyday things that ought to be easy, like getting in my car and driving to London. At the end of last year my agoraphobia got so bad I could barely leave the house'.
Looking back, Edwards says anxiety has been an issue for her since childhood. Video calling from the walk-in wardrobe of the home she shares with her partner, the former England footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and their three-year-old son Axel, she recalls the nerves she felt auditioning for The X Factor in 2011, aged just 17.
'My mam said: 'If you're lucky, they'll put you in a group'. And I said: 'Oh, I do hope so!'' She smiles, and hugs her elbows as if giving her younger, pre-fame self a hug. 'I was painfully shy. I would freeze up if I had to speak to people. I knew I could sing, but I had no confidence. And I'm still working on that.'
The race for solo success
Within weeks of her audition, the talent show's svengalis had dropped Edwards into quartet Little Mix, whose sweet and sparky harmonies saw them hailed by Gary Barlow as 'the best girl band that's ever been on X Factor '. Despite being 'underdogs', they won the competition.
Over the next decade, hits including Wings (2012), Black Magic (2015), Shout Out To My Ex (2016) and Heartbreak Anthem (2021) would see Little Mix become the first girl group to spend more than 100 weeks in the UK Top 10, selling over 75 million albums (and amassing 15 billion streams) around the world. They were the second most successful act to emerge from the show after One Direction (whose Zayn Malik Edwards would date from 2011-2015).
After Little Mix went on hiatus in 2022, the race began for solo success. Nelson went first, dropping the single Boyz in 2021, which was savaged by critics. The video – in which the white-skinned Nelson appeared to have darkened her complexion – saw her accused of cultural appropriation and 'blackfishing'. Nelson responded, saying she hadn't intended to cause offence and that her deep tan was the result of a pre-shoot holiday to Antigua rather than fake tan.
The other girls have since released more warmly received solo work: Thirlwall's Angel of My Dreams was nominated for Single of the Year at the Brit Awards, while Edwards' Forget About Us (written by Ed Sheeran) broke into the Top 10 in the UK.
But by the end of last year, Edwards felt her anxiety spiralling out of control. 'I was in the studio thinking: 'I need to write a hit! I need to write a hit today!' The music industry is so competitive and I felt I was starting from scratch. It's a pressure cooker in which you're constantly being compared to everybody else and I just couldn't find a sound that I believed in…'
Edwards admits that she struggled to carve out a solo identity. 'Jade knew, from the get-go, what she wanted to do, how she wanted to sound and the audience she was aiming for. But I didn't know and you cannot just pluck those answers out of thin air…' She shakes out her crinkly blonde curls and assumes a faux arrogance: ''D'you know what? I'm going to be an emo star! I'm gonna be a rock star!'' She laughs. 'That wasn't how it worked for me.'
'I was raised to think footballers were wrong 'uns'
The first single from her debut album is released this week, and is a punchy blast of girl power pop called If He Wanted To He Would, sung from the perspective of a woman telling a friend that her boyfriend isn't treating her well.
Without referring directly to Malik – who Edwards has previously claimed ended their four-year relationship by text message, which he denies – she says she wishes one of her friends had been honest enough to tell her when she was being treated badly in the past. 'I never had that,' she reflects. 'I wish my friends had sat me down and said: 'Perrie, he is no good. He is doing this and that and it's bad. We get that you love him but he isn't good for you and you need to get out'.'
She admits to wariness when she first began dating Oxlade-Chamberlain in 2016. 'I never planned on dating a footballer,' she says. 'I thought after my past, all the s--- I went through, that I would end up with somebody normal, somebody who worked in an office, or a bricklayer. Not somebody from my industry. I was raised to think footballers were wrong 'uns, that they'll cheat on you. I knew people would have had no sympathy for me'.
Her family, too, had concerns, until 'they met him and said: 'Oh! Now we feel awful'. He's the sweetest, most funny and genuine person'.
While her former bandmate Thirlwell has become somewhat of a political and cultural activist – expressing her contempt for Reform UK on stage at Glastonbury, and openly advocating for LGBTQ+ rights – Edwards is happier to stay out of current affairs.
'The best thing is for women to have a choice. If you want to be political on stage, be political! If you want to keep away from that s--- and focus on other things then do that!' She's not bothered by comments about skimpy stage gear either. 'If I'm naked, it's because I want to be naked. It's not because there's a man whispering in my ear that sex sells.'
She's comfortably into her stride by the time we end our call. 'I don't think women should have to go through a tick box checklist: am I political enough? Am I 'proud and sexy' enough? Am I covering up enough?' She shrugs. 'We're not going to satisfy everybody anyway. So you have to do you and f--- everybody else!'