Singer Jade Thirlwall, who is appearing on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show tonight (February 28), previously opened up about her health battle with an eating disorder.
The Angel of My Dreams hitmaker, who is also nominated at the BRIT Awards this evening, made sure her health battle didn’t become the focal point of her career.
During her teens, Jade was bullied, and after her maternal grandfather died when she was 13, she suffered a battle with anorexia.
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Jade Thirlwall on hidden health battle
During an interview with The Guardian last year, Jade said he “made sure” the press didn’t catch wind of her health struggles.
“They’d always try to fish for a sob story, but I didn’t want that to be my identity. I was starting afresh. I thought, OK, this is a huge opportunity for me, it’s a chance to change my life,” she said.
Jade declared that she “wanted to do music more than anything” and the only way she was to make her dreams come true was if she were to be “healthy”, stating it “was the ultimate motivation”.
While Jade is in a healthier state than she was in her teens, she still receives negative comments about her supposedly gaining weight. She admitted it is a “daily battle with myself not to go on Ozempic” but has opted not to because she doesn’t “know where taking something like that would end for me”.
‘I’d have such disturbing nightmares’
While in Little Mix, Jade later realised there was a dark period where she was “quite unhappy”.
“I didn’t think it at the time, but when I look back at photos of periods when I was quite unhappy, I think, wow, girlie, you were very, very thin. The pattern was there. Historically, if I’ve ever felt that something is out of my control, then restricting food has been a means of controlling my life in a very toxic way,” she explained.
“In summer 2017, I was living in a flat in East London and having really bad night terrors. I’d have such disturbing nightmares – things that are too horrific to say, dreams where I’d be harming myself – that I’d force myself to stay awake by drinking coffee and playing loud music. I’d be going to perform at outdoor concerts having not slept for days.”
As a result, her mum took her to see her family doctor, who prescribed antidepressants. Jade admitted she felt “so sad and so horrendously guilty for feeling sad”.
She feared “something awful” would happen to her mum’s lupus and wouldn’t be there for her. Jade missed family funerals and questioned whether it was worth it.
Jade’s mum and her best friend made sure to go on tour with her for extra support. “It was so cute. The pair of them, like Ab Fab, driving me to each venue, making sure I was fed and watered,” she said.
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