Why Jesy Nelson's pregnancy will NOT lead to a Little Mix reunion

When pop star Jesy Nelson announced her first pregnancy on Sunday, fans eagerly waited for messages of support from her three best friends and former Little Mix bandmates.

Instead there was a wall of silence from Perrie Edwards, 31, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, 33, and Jade Thirlwall, 32.

The four girls, who had grown up together in front of The X Factor cameras and were 'like sisters', sensationally severed ties when Jesy left the band in December 2020.

Her departure - blamed at the time on the toll the band was taking on her mental health - dismayed fans and ultimately marked the end of the most successful British girl band of the 21st century.

In the intervening years, any hopes of a reunion have been repeatedly quashed by a bitter war of words between Jesy and her three former bandmates.

Jesy made an ill-fated bid for a solo career, but after one lacklustre collaboration with American rapper Nicki Minaj, she was humiliatingly dropped from her record label Polydor in 2022 after they 'failed to agree on new music'.

A source close to the singer tells me: 'Jesy felt betrayed. Betrayed by the Little Mix girls she once called sisters. And betrayed by the record label who dropped her despite its promise to make her a huge superstar in the US.

'The betrayal forced her to reflect on what she really wanted out of life, and that was when she first started to think about starting a family. Her career could wait. The cut-throat nature of the business reminded her that family is more important.'

Now that dream has come true as the singer, aged 33, is expecting twins with her on-off 'toyboy' boyfriend of three years, musician Zion Foster, 26.

Posting a snap of her baby bump, with her partner's loving hand resting on it, Jesy wrote in the caption: 'She's eating for 3 now.'

Showbiz pals including Alan Carr and Amanda Holden showered Jesy with supportive messages, and even her ex-boyfriend, Love Islander Chris Hughes, congratulated her, replying: 'Go on girl.'

Friends say it is the 'happy ending' she has been waiting for after her traumatic fallout with her bandmates.

One said: 'It marks the beginning of a new chapter. Recent years have not been kind to Jesy and fame never brought her the happiness she craved. Now she is in love and has two babies on the way and she couldn't be happier.'

It's quite the about turn from the young woman who just four years ago categorically stated that she did not want children.

The former Essex barmaid said in 2021: 'It's just not in me. I think as a woman, [motherhood is] either in you or it isn't.

'You either have that maternal feeling or you don't, and I've never had that feeling.'

Jesy grew up in Romford, east London, as part of a single-parent family with three siblings, but admitted that she had 'never even thought' about having a baby.

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The comments were made as the former Little Mix singer was focusing all her energy on her solo music career.

Having left the band the year before, citing mental health struggles, she told fans: 'There comes a time in life when we need to reinvest in taking care of ourselves rather than focusing on making other people happy, and I feel like now is the time to begin that process.'

But going solo after Little Mix was a rude awakening for Jesy. At first, snapped up by Universal label Polydor, who promptly paired her with American rapper Nicki Minaj, she seemed destined for super-stardom. 

Yet their first collaboration, the song Boyz, became famous not for its chart-topping success – it reached a relatively disappointing number four in the UK charts – but for the controversy it sparked over allegations of 'blackfishing', the term used when white people profit from imitating stereotypically black characteristics.

In the video – alongside now-disgraced rapper P Diddy – Jesy is heavily tanned and wears her hair styled with wigs and braids. She is dressed in basketball shorts, with gold teeth, and sings lyrics that include wanting a boy who's 'so hood, so good, so damn taboo'.

The scandal reached its zenith on the night of Monday October 11, 2021 – an infamous evening among Little Mix fans - when Jesy appeared on an Instagram live broadcast with her collaborator Minaj. During the discussion, the blackfishing controversy was raised, with influencer No Hun claiming that Jesy's former black bandmate Leigh-Anne had helped instigate the outcry via private messages and others from the band had poured fuel on the fire online. This was never proved.

Minaj came to Jesy's defence, saying her former bandmates were only 'calling [her] out' to help their 'personal vendetta' against her, saying: 'Don't wait a decade after you've made millions with the person.'

The rapper also said that a lot of women in America get tans and big lips, and that she herself wore straight blonde hair and didn't see the problem.

In an expletive-laden rant, Minaj added: 'If you was in this woman's group and you ain't talk about this s*** for ten years, and as soon as you see she got a video coming out with Nicki Minaj and Puffy, now you sending text messages...

'Stop trying to hurt people and kill people's lives and careers, this is the way people feed their families. Stop – if you want a solo career, baby girl, just say that. Only jealous people do things like this. It makes you a big jealous bozo. Let these people be miserable all by themselves.'

Instead of defending her friends, Jesy laughed as Nicki referred to her ex-bandmates as 'clowns'.

One insider said: 'Leigh-Anne had just given birth to twin girls, and faced an online pile on instigated by one of the biggest musicians in America, and her supposed friend Jesy just sat there and laughed. So don't expect the Little Mix girls to rush over to congratulate Jesy now she is having her own children.'

Leigh-Anne's twin girls, with footballer husband Andre Gray, are now three, while Perrie has become a mum too - to son Axel, also three, with footballer fiancé Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Little Mix, who still perform as a trio, were later asked about their thoughts on the blackfishing furore.

'Capitalising on aspects of blackness without having to endure the daily realities of the black experience is problematic and harmful to people of colour,' Leigh-Anne said. 'We think it's absolutely not okay to use harmful stereotypes.'

Jade Thirlwall added: 'We don't really want to dwell, because we have so much to celebrate as a three. We've dealt with it in the best way that we know how and got each other through it.'

Jesy later defended herself again in an interview. 'I love Black culture. I love Black music. That's all I know; it's what I grew up on. I'm very aware that I'm a white British woman; I've never said that I wasn't.'

Despite the attention the scandal brought, the single underperformed commercially, dropping out of the UK chart after seven weeks and failing to chart in the US at all despite the appearance of Minaj.

Polydor then dropped Jesy from the label.

Leigh-Anne later revealed in her memoirs that the remaining members of Little Mix had to go into therapy after Jesy's 'traumatic' exit.

'The whole thing was abrupt and sad and then it was messy,' she wrote.

Addressing getting caught in the 'horrific online row', the singer described it as one of the most difficult moments in her career.

'In the moment it felt truly awful. As much as I tried to avoid Instagram and Twitter I kept seeing the comments and the debates that were taking place on every platform,' she confessed.

Since the debacle, Jesy has not spoken to the girls that were once her 'sisters' and doesn't follow them on social media. Instead she and her boyfriend Zion split their time between her poolside home in Los Angeles and her Essex mansion.

Yesterday the expectant mum posted a video to Instagram thanking fans for their support. Rubbing her growing belly, she captioned the post: 'I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your beautiful messages over the past 24 hours. We feel so overwhelmed with all the love and support.'

What did not go unnoticed was the vintage T-shirt she wore, which some fans thought was a subtle message about her feelings towards her time in Little Mix. It was emblazoned with the name of a noughties hip-hop duo: Outkast.