Jesy Nelson confirms Little Mix bandmates ‘have all reached out’ after twin daughters’ SMA1 analysis – and ‘it has positively healed part of her’ after ‘scrutiny and fixed comparability’ left her questioning if she’d ever be joyful once more

Jesy Nelson has revealed that all of her former Little Mix bandmates ‘reached out’ after her twin daughters were diagnosed with SMA1. 

The singer took to This Morning on Friday, joining Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary to open up about her upcoming Prime Video documentary,  Life After Little Mix, which hit screens today.

Jesy, 34, let cameras follow her daily life, including her difficult pregnancy with daughters Ocean Jade and Story Monroe, after she developed twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS).

The twins were later diagnosed with spinal muscular dystrophy (SMA), a rare genetic condition that can cause muscle weakness.

It wasn’t until the twins were six months old that the alarm bells were rung, when her mum, Janice White, noticed the twins weren’t ‘moving their legs properly’. 

In the wake of the heartbreaking diagnosis, Jesy revealed that her former bandmates, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards, all ‘reached out’ – despite the band splitting in 2021 after Jesy stepped back in 2020. 

She told Dermot and Alison that Leigh-Anne, 34, Jade, 33, and Perrie, 32, contacted her, admitting it was ‘very healing’ to be back in touch with them. 

Jesy explained: ‘Three of us are mums now, we’ve all had time to heal, it’s been nearly six years, and it’s just one of those things that takes time.

‘Since they’ve been reaching out it’s definitely healed a part of me, for sure.’

Reflecting on leaving the band, the mother-of-two added: ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy being in the band, it was the constant comparison and the scrutiny that I used to get. it was all the time and it never left me. 

‘I don’t wanna be like, “I hated my time in Little Mix”, because I had the time of my life… but that part I never got over. That wasn’t making me internally happy.

She later continued: ‘As dark as this sounds, I got to a point where I felt, “Am I going to ever feel happy again?” But I am happy.’

Jesy also reflected on the birth of her twin daughters giving her a new ‘purpose’ in life, as she admitted she felt she ‘didn’t know the point’ of her life before them. 

The singer admitted that her previous struggles ‘trivial’ in comparison to the heartbreak of her twins being diagnosed with SMA.

She added to Dermot, 52, and Alison, 51: ‘[The twins] made me the person I always wanted to be, and it feels really deep but I feel like they’ve given me purpose, they give me purpose every day.

‘I don’t regret anything in my life because it’s all led me to my beautiful girls.’

Encouraging viewers to tune in to the documentary series, which launched on Prime Video today, she concluded: ‘I’d like people to watch it, if anyone is going through something similar, doesn’t even have to be exactly that, just going through a dark time, that it can and will get better.’ 

It comes after Jesy  revealed she tried to take her own life just days before she quit Little Mix, as she laid bare the mystery behind her departure from the band.

Overcome with emotion, Jesy recalled feeling ‘really alone’ after she claimed her bandmates ignored her cry for help in the lead up to her overdose. 

It was the second time Jesy had tried to commit suicide following an overdose in 2013, which she discussed in her BBC documentary Jesy Nelson: Odd One Out.

Jesy explained: ‘I was so sad. I was so down. I knew after coming out of hospital that I mentally couldn’t do it [be in the band] any more.’

Speaking about the painful breakdown of Little Mix days before she tried to take her own life, Jesy said: ‘I sat everyone down to explain how I was feeling and I remember one of the responses being, “Are you done now? Is that it?”

‘She [one of the girls] was like, “Can I go now?” That made me feel really alone. I felt like there was no point. That no one cared.’

It was Jesy’s mother Janice who raised the alarm after Jesy fell unconscious while on the phone to her. 

Janice explained: ‘For a few days before, she had just been really down and not talking much. She wanted to be on her own quite a lot. 

‘I got a gut feeling that something wasn’t right. I kept ringing and ringing, but there was no answer. She eventually answered the phone and the way she was talking was really slurry.

‘I heard the phone drop and didn’t hear anything else – I knew she’d done something.’

Speaking about the breakdown of Little Mix’s friendship, Janice said the band ‘wasn’t there’ for Jesy, adding: ‘I can see why they did get angry at times.

‘It’s hard to work with someone who is always down when you are always happy.

‘But I personally believe that at Jesy’s lowest of low times, the girls were not really there for her and I think that’s why she’s so sad now.’

After Jesy’s second suicide attempt, Janice said: ‘I kept cuddling her and said, “Right, that’s it now. No more. You’ve got to stop doing what makes you unhappy”.’

It was at that moment in hospital recovery, Jesy made the decision to quit. 

At the time of Jesy’s overdose, she was meant to appear in the final of Little Mix’s BBC talent show The Search.

Host Chris Ramsey told fans at the time that Jesy had fallen ill as he explained her sudden absence from the show.

After seeking legal advice, Jesy said her lawyers delivered the news to her bandmates before she had the chance. 

Jesy said: ‘I think they felt really hurt about that and it should never have played out like that. I didn’t get my opportunity to explain why I couldn’t do this anymore. I feel mad that that was taken away from me.’

She continued: ‘I got myself up mentally and was like, right, I want to have a chat with the girls now, I wanna chat to them and tell them why, I did what I did, like how I’ve been feeling. Just really explain to them, try to make them understand how I was feeling. 

‘And then my manager called, and she was like, “so I’ve spoke to the girls and they are happy to chat to you, but they don’t feel comfortable being in a room with you unless there is a therapist there”.

‘I just remember being like, “what? I’ve just come out of hospital, like this is the time I need you the most”.

‘I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like they were my sisters.’

Jesy explained: ‘Eventually there was a phone call. It was really awkward and so weird. It was like talking to strangers. It was the most uncomfortable phone call of my life. No one knew what to say.

‘And that’s the last time I ever spoke to them as a group. It’s been five years now and every time I think about it, I think, was it them or was it the management? I’ll never know.’

Later on in the docuseries, Jesy was asked if she ever sees herself reuniting with the band.

She replied: ‘I really don’t know. I see both sides. I see why they would be sad and hurt.’

Jesy continued: ‘They reached out to me when I was pregnant, it was lovely because I never thought that would happen.

‘It made me really emotional. We’re grown women now, we’ve got kids, and I just think there are so many more important things in life. It’s just one of those things that need to be put to bed now.’ 

Elsewhere, Jesy recently hit out against healthcare staff who visited her twin daughters in the days after their premature birth as ‘really worrying’ for not spotting the signs of SMA.

Jesy explained that in the months prior to their diagnosis, following their premature birth, the twins were being monitored by professionals ‘a lot’ yet ‘none of them spotted the signs’. 

Speaking to Sky News‘ The UK Tonight programme with Sarah-Jane Mee, Jesy admitted it was ‘difficult from the get go’ for her to spot symptoms and raise the alarm, given what she was ‘told’ by staff leaving the hospital. 

The singer said: ‘It took for my mum to spot the signs, and that’s what’s really worrying, because we had healthcare visitors come a lot and none of them spotted the signs.’

Asked whether she had to ‘fight’ to get ‘health professionals to take her seriously’, Jesy added: ‘It was difficult from the very get-go.

‘When I was on the neonatal ward, I was constantly told before I left, “Please don’t compare your babies as they are never going to reach the same milestones as other babies” because they were premature.

‘I went through such a traumatic experience with my pregnancy, with the TTTS (twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome), so when I took them home I was very on edge about everything.

‘I feel like most mums are anyway, but I was just [looking at them] 24/7  with the temperature gun constantly, but the one thing I wasn’t taking notice of was the movement of their legs.’ 

Furious that it had taken for her to speak up to raise awareness, Jesy added: ‘[I am] sad and angry, I go through so many emotions when I personally meet families and I hear their stories. 

‘It makes me feel so sad because, great that people are starting to take notice and take it seriously but it never should have taken for me to come along to be taken seriously.

‘That’s the part that makes me so angry, this is just anything, this is a matter of life or death for someone’s child.’ 

‘Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare genetic condition that can cause muscle weakness. It gets worse over time, but there are medicines and other treatments to help manage the symptoms,’ according to the NHS website. 

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