‘I won’t sugarcoat it’: JADE on Little Mix, going solo, and her candid new single ‘IT Girl’
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As one quarter of Little Mix, Jade Thirlwall breathed fresh life into British pop. Now, newly solo with a debut electro-pop hit to her name, she speaks to Annabel Nugent about the other side of fame, why she loves to ‘poke the bear a bit’ – and the joy of embracing her Arab heritage after a decade hiding it.
![[Fallen angel: Jade Thirlwall takes aim at the music industry in her solo material]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/07/23/09/newFile-3.jpg)
Before Jade Thirlwall was Jade from Little Mix, she was Jade from South Shields, contestant number 159420 on The X Factor. It was on that show in 2011 that Thirlwall, baby-faced at 18, joined hands with three other teen hopefuls to form Little Mix, setting off a chain reaction of events that would see them become Britain’s biggest, best-selling, Brit-winning girl group since the Spice Girls.
![[Dream come true: Little Mix pictured winning ‘The X Factor’ alongside coach Tulisa in 2011]](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2011/12/13/00/Pg-22-littlemix-rex.jpg)
It’s been three years since Little Mix announced their hiatus in 2022 – an eternity in music – but within minutes of meeting Thirlwall, who is now 32, I’m reminded of the iron grip their slick, snappy bubblegum pop had on the nation. The chorus of “Shout Out to My Ex” – one of several No 1s; a true bop unmatched in its stinging takedown of a bad boyfriend – comes to mind instantly, as easily recalled as the name of my first pet or my mum’s birthday.
![[JADE: ‘People have to find something to criticise; if it’s not the music, it’s how I look, that I’ve put on weight, the campaign, or whatever’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/03/16/Independentfeature2.jpg)
Thirlwall enters the restaurant in megastar mode, which is to say incognito. The brim of her fluffy leopard-print hat flops over her eyes as she hurriedly sits down at our table upstairs undetected by the craning necks below. She’s wearing a baggy jumper and red tartan sweatpants. On anyone else, it might look like pyjamas.
![[Little Mix became the UK’s biggest girl group since the Spice Girls]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2020/10/09/09/newFile-2.jpg)
