Ahead of singer JADE releasing her highly-anticipated debut solo album, That's Showbiz Baby!, we caught up with the Little Mix star to chat about life after the enormously successful girl group, developing a "new level" of thick skin and embracing her weird side.
JADE, aka Jade Thirwall, had to take a beat after Little Mix announced an indefinite hiatus a few years back.
After being accustomed to the "hamster wheel" of "album, tour, album tour", the popstar felt the pressure to swiftly launch her career as a solo artist.
"In my head, I was like, 'I've got to release something straight away, everyone's going to forget about me. I've got to ride the wave of Little Mix' - all that stuff that I've been programmed to think as a pop artist," she told RTÉ Entertainment over Zoom.
"And now I look back at some of the music I wrote then I'm like, 'Wow, that really was just another Little Mix record'. So I'm really glad that pushed myself to wait. Thank God I gave it a minute to figure out who I am again."
Little Mix need little introduction. The beloved British pop act, consisting of Thirwall, Perrie Edwards, Jesy Nelson and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, became the first girl group to win The X Factor after forming on the talent competition in 2011.
The next decade saw them release six albums and score massive hits such as Wings, Black Magic, Shout Out to My Ex and Sweet Melody, as well as garnering a legion of diehard fans, or Mixers are they're affectionately known. Nelson left the band in 2020, citing the toll being in the band took on her mental health, before they went on hiatus in 2022 to focus on their solo careers.
JADE is still blown away by everything they accomplished over the years.
"I'm so proud of what we achieved," she said. "Sometimes we'll message in the group chat and one of us would say, 'Oh my God, I've just watched the BRITs performance we did in 2017, weren’t we amazing!’.
"It's so hard when you’re in that bubble to understand the greatness of it. The best thing about it is - we remain friends, we remain equals, but also we created such a lovely fan base. As a girl band, that's what it's about - it’s about female empowerment, sisterhood.
"So many of our fans became lifelong friends off the back of that fandom. Even now, as a solo artist, the front row of fans at the festivals are those diehard, day ones that have been there since they were 8-years-old. I think that's so beautiful."
Coming off the back of operating in a girl band, making her solo album, the delightfully titled That's Showbiz Baby!, was "very different".
"Just practically, singing a whole song is something I hadn't done for over a decade," she said. "At the beginning, when I first started recording, I'd be like, 'Oh Perrie or Leigh-Anne would sound great on this bit'. I had to reprogramme my brain to think, 'No, this is all you now'."
"It's been nice for certain songs stripping it back a bit and not always giving it this big belt. Little Mix was that - it was always, big chorus, everyone gets this huge adlib at the end... It's been fun experimenting vocally and surprising people again."
The result? An incredibly assured, innovative piece of work that has a sense of the popstar being unapologetically herself.
"I think I do have quite chaotic, scatty brain," she said in her distinctively softly-spoked but self-assured manner. "I feel like that shows in my music and because I've had the freedom to really explore that I've I feel like I've ended up with an album that is very much 'JADE', which is nice."
The first single from the album was the brilliantly left-of-centre hit Angel Of My Dreams, which she said was the "perfect introduction" to her new material.
"It was so important for the first single to show, not just Little Mix fans, but a new audience who I am, what I'm capable of. I knew I wanted to tell my story in a 3 1/2 minute pop song, so that's why it sounds so chaotic," she said.
"I was so confident about the song, regardless of how well it did. Before the release I was prepped for a marmite response to it. For it to then be so well received and critically acclaimed... In my humble opinion, it should have been No1 everywhere in the world," she laughed. "But it didn't need to be, because it got everyone really excited about who I was."
Who she sees herself as is "the slightly weird one", something she has learned to embrace wholeheartedly in her thirties.
"I am quite an introverted person," she revealed. "I was that nerdy child. I'd be so shy and then I'd get put on stage and I'd have this other persona - I've taken that through with me my whole life.
"Even in the group, I think the fans and the girls always labelled me as the weird one, which I proudly take. As a solo artist, it's just been let loose even more. I like causing a stir, that's my thing."
Looking back at herself as an 18-year-old, starting out in Little Mix, she sees herself as "very young".
"I look back at pictures of myself and I'm like, 'You really were a child'. I was so skinny and scrawny, just a little kid who had no idea what was about to come. Thank God I was put in a girl band because at least we had each other to navigate the industry together," she said.
There was "a blessing in being so naïve".
"It was almost a good thing. Because I was so excited about everything going on, I didn't really have time to think about the darkness of it, or the relentless schedules, or everything that was a bit off... I look back at it very fondly," she said.
Navigating the pop industry with Little Mix gave her confidence "because you've got your sisters backing you". Carving out a solo career has come with certain pitfalls.
She said: "If anything was negative in the press or if anything was controversial, you are sharing that load. Now on my own, it's definitely a bit scarier when people are coming for you, or if I'm being trolled online. It's a new level of thick skin."
The singer, who has spoken publicly with her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, was also frank about being at the receiving end of body-shaming comments online.
"Because I'm a bit older now, I've got more of a woman's body, I've just naturally evolved as a human. I think some people still see me as that super thin, ultra-glamorous girl band member. I do see a lot of commentary on that and that has affected me sometimes, it’s something I've had to get used to," she said.
"It's always happened, being in the public eye anyways, but as a solo artist, it's a whole different ball game because it's literally just about you. Navigating that is sometimes difficult, but I don't want to change my body, or who I am, just because people said so."
"I'm used to it," she shrugged. "Sometimes I will have a little moment to my best friend or my boyfriend, and then I'll still make myself a roast dinner. I could sit here and say, 'It doesn't bother me'. But I think it's human to admit that of course it's going to bother you."
After weathering 14 years in the glare of the public eye, you might expect JADE to be guarded, or even a bit standoffish. Instead she is immediately disarming - funny, vulnerable and refreshingly candid. She is also unafraid of the grind needed to make it in this industry.
"As a solo artist, it does feel like starting again," she said. "You've still got to graft for it, and sometimes it's even harder because you have to prove why you're good as a solo artist as well as being in a band. I don't take any of it for granted. If anything, I'm working harder now to show people that."
Taking her solo material on the road is something that she has "always dreamed of", adding that she's glad to be kicking off her tour in Ireland.
"Thank God I'm starting in Dublin because it is the best place, genuinely," she said. "Any Irish gig is gonna be the best one. The fans are crazy, the venue’s great. So it's going to be like the perfect opener for sure."
And I can't let her go without asking about Little Mix's future. Will they always be a big part of one another's lives?
"We went through such a unique experience and there's so many things that only we know or understand," she said. "We are like family now, so even if we don't see each other all the time, I know they're there, if I'm ever freaking out about anything, or if there's any big milestones in our lives, we've got each other.
"I'm sure there'll be some sort of reunion further down the line when the time is right, so it's so nice to know that that's always there as an option."
JADE's debut solo album That's Showbiz Baby! is out now. She will play Dublin's 3Olympia Theatre on 7 and 8 October, 2025.
