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Little Mix: Aftercare is so important on our reality show as we didn’t receive much support at start of our career

BBC
BBC

Little Mix have stressed the importance of aftercare for singers competing in their new reality show, The Search.

The girl band, who shot to fame as the winners of The X Factor in 2011, are set to launch a new talent contest on BBC One this weekend.

The show will see Jesy Nelson, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards audition singers to become members of all-female, all-male or mixed bands.

They will act as mentors for the contestants, who will live together and have access to the band’s inner circle of songwriters, producers, vocal coaches and stylists.

Little Mix’s New Talent Show Coming To BBC One In Autumn

The group told Radio Times that their experiences on The X Factor helped to shape the aftercare process for contestants on The Search.

“I just remember being taken into a room and being given our schedule for the next year and we were like, ‘Sorry, what?’” Nelson told the magazine.

“It was like your life was taken away. Not that we are complaining about that, but you do get thrown into it without a second to think about anything, which can be a lot to deal with.”

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(BBC)

She added: “Our aftercare for these contestants is so important to us because we didn’t really get that.

“We never had anyone checking on us to see how we were doing mentally, it was all just go, go, go. I personally don’t feel like there was anyone who cared.”

“When we won, we weren’t even allowed to spend time with our families to celebrate,” Pinnock added.

“There’s a lot more awareness now about mental health, but people still just see the pop, the smiles and the stage, and they don’t really understand what goes on. I kind of wish there was a lot more help along the way.”

Read the full interview in the new issue of Radio Times, out now.

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