Nigeria: Jade Thirlwall on life after ‘Little mix’

By Zuleihat Owuiye, Nigeria

When Little Mix announced an indefinite hiatus at the end of 2021, Jade Thirlwall had a decision to make. 

After 10 years of non-stop touring, chart hits, and being one third of the UK’s biggest girl group, the 29-year-old suddenly had to answer a question she hadn’t faced since she was 18: who is Jade, on her own?

“I had pretty much written a whole record by the summer after the hiatus,” she tells _Variety_ backstage after her Lollapalooza set last month. “I’d got in my head that I’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot, got to stay relevant.”

Thankfully, her team told her to wait. “Keep writing,” they said. In hindsight, she’s glad she listened. “I listen to some of that music now, and it does just kind of sound like Little Mix.”

Of the three members, Jade was the last to release solo music. That wasn’t hesitation. It was intention.

“I really had to exist on my own for a bit, and be like, okay, who am I now, you know?” she says. “It’s like when you break up with someone, and you all of a sudden have to find your identity again.”

Little Mix formed on _The X Factor_ in 2011. Their cover of Damien Rice’s “Cannonball” went to No.1, and from there the group built a catalogue most artists only dream of: five UK No.1s, 19 top 10s, and a No.1 album with _Glory Days_. In the US, they became the first British girl group to have a debut album enter the Top 5 in its first week.

Leaving that behind meant more than leaving hits behind. It meant leaving a safety net.

“I was really inspired by Gwen Stefani’s ‘What You Waiting For?’” she says. “She came out with that banger. I loved that the concept was about her not knowing what to write for her first record. Genius!”

She also points to Beyoncé. “You know, Beyoncé had no business bringing out a whole fucking brass band for ‘Crazy In Love,’ and doing that walk in the video,” she laughs.

Her logic was simple: “You get one chance to cement yourself as a solo artist coming out of a group; it’s a lot of pressure. My logic was, I’d rather come out fucking swinging with something brave and bold and might miss, but at least you can’t say I’ve not tried to do something big.”

“Angel of My Dreams” arrived on July 14, 2024, just over two years after the hiatus began. The fast, theatrical electropop track was paired with a video that played like a commentary on the industry itself. It was followed a year later by her debut album, _That’s Showbiz Baby!_

The theme running through it all was fame — and her complicated relationship with it.

“I think it’s a drug. It’s addictive,” Jade says. “Even the strongest artists that think they’re above it, or that they’re not bothered by being famous, have that human part of them that craves validation or attention, especially in this pop industry. It’s literally part of the job to remain relevant and have people talk about you. It’s really hard to not sort of base your life around that.”

She knows because she lived it twice. Promoting a solo album without bandmates meant going back on the promo trail alone. The old anxieties came back: worrying about numbers, checking comments, trying to feel relevant.

“It retriggered all the things I thought I’d healed from post-Little Mix,” she admits. The stress put her back in therapy — something she’d started during Little Mix but had paused.

“It was a lesson I needed,” she says now. “I really do have a much healthier relationship out of the back of ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’ I know going into this next record, some might argue that it’s even more pressure, but this is the bonus round again. And I think every time something does well, I’m like, ‘Oh, great! Alright, let’s do the next thing.’”

Jade recently received a Mercury Prize nomination — one of the UK’s most prestigious music honors. For an artist who left a multi-platinum group to take a risk on something deeply personal, it felt like confirmation.

“I couldn’t have predicted this amount of critical acclaim,” she says. “I really don’t take it for granted at all. I feel overwhelmed that I managed to create something that was so authentically me, and people have been like, ‘Yeah, we like that.’ In the U.K., it’s one of the big ‘uns, and it’s just a beautiful ending to that era and campaign.”

She laughs about the journey to get there. “I’ll always remember the producers and writers who didn’t want to work on my first solo project,” she says. “There are people that have gotten in touch since, being like, ‘Do you want to do a writing session?’ and I’m like, ‘Hell no!’”

But the tone quickly turns serious. “It’s kind of like the universe saying, ‘Stay true to yourself’ — especially going into the next record.”

Little Mix haven’t officially broken up. When they announced the hiatus, they said there were “plans for more music, tours and performances in the future.” For now, though, Jade is focused on her own lane.

The Mercury nomination closes the chapter on _That’s Showbiz Baby!_ in style. It validates the risk she took — the decision to wait, to write, to not sound like Little Mix 2.0.

She’s already thinking about what comes next. If the first album was about fame, the next one, she hints, will go even deeper into who she is without it.

“I think every time something does well, it just makes you braver,” she says. “You go, okay, that worked. Now what else can I try?”

From a talent show in 2011 to Lollapalooza in 2026, from group harmonies to solo pop with teeth, Jade has spent 15 years in the public eye. The difference now is that the voice leading is hers alone.