Little Mix’s Jesy Nelson has said fronting a TV series exploring body image and mental health helped her overcome insecurities about her weight.
The pop singer, 28, said she had wanted to “erase” all memory of her younger self because she saw that person as “the fat one from Little Mix”.
Nelson said “endless amounts of trolling” had made her hate the woman she saw when she looked at photos of herself in her early twenties.
In a post to her 5.4 million Instagram followers, the Essex native urged fans to speak out about their insecurities, before sharing an image of herself from 2011.
She said: “Six months ago this girl was someone I just wanted to forget.
|I wanted to erase her from my mind and everyone else’s memory. I didn’t see her as Jesy I saw her as ‘the fat one from Little Mix’.
“But, up until now I hated her because I was made to hate her by endless amounts of trolling.
“Since filming my documentary I’ve learned so much more than I ever expected to.”
Her programme, which has a working title of Jesy Nelson: My Story and will premiere on BBC Three before airing on BBC One, will look at “how growing up in a social media-fuelled age of selfies, body shaming and trolling is having an impact on the mental health of young people”.
She thanked people for helping her to love her younger self.
