What Jade did next

Jade Thirlwall spent the weeks before her solo debut preparing to defend herself. She wasn’t particularly nervous, nor was she doubting the quality of her first single, Angel of My Dreams. But she knew it was a bit out there – ​“a Marmite song”, as she puts it – and she knew it had to succeed at a very particular mission: reintroduce the pop star to the world, transforming her from ​“Jade from Little Mix” to, simply, Jade.

“I think maybe people knew me the least in the band,” she says, thoughtfully swirling the straw in her blackcurrant soda. ​“Which I actually loved. It was kind of a strength, not having so much heat on me in the public eye. And that meant that I could reintroduce myself in a way that felt fresh for people. I think people were thinking, ​‘What’s she gonna come out with?’ No one could predict it.”

We’re in an uncharacteristically sleepy London pub on an unseasonably warm September afternoon. Today marks exactly two months since Angel of My Dreams was released. Yes, it was a bit of a shock. No one ever expected to hear Sandie Shaw’s 1967 earworm Puppet on a String sampled on a pop track that references Eurodance legends Scooter and DJ Sammy, not least from a former Little Mix member. It’s the kind of song that whips you into confusion on first listen – with its pitched-up vocals, thumping bass, revving synths and a soaring balladic bridge – then later convinces you that it’s kind of, sort of, maybe pop genius.

“I felt like [the song] was kind of risky, but then it came out and everyone was, like, gagging for it,” says Jade, half-laughing at her turn of phrase. She’s a little shier than you might expect in person, speaking softly and finishing any acknowledgements of her own talent with self-deprecating smiles. It’s not that she downplays her achievements, more that, off-stage and off-camera, there’s no need to adopt a larger-than-life pop star persona. Still, Jade’s thrilled by the public’s embrace of Angel of My Dreams, which peaked at no. 7 in the UK charts. ​“It’s been all systems go ever since.”

No one in the pub seems to have noticed that one-fourth of Britain’s second-biggest girl band (Spice Girls are a tough act to dethrone) is sitting in one of the farmhouse-chic booths. To be fair, her outfit is relatively incognito: bejewelled Simone Rocha Crocs and a denim maxi skirt, paired with a green cardi over a T‑shirt that reads ​“Star me in your movie”. Or maybe punters around here are used to it. This particular area of the capital has been Jade’s home for the past year, a pastoral, pretend escape to the country that’s still within Uber distance from the buzz of central London.

“I can put my hood up with my hat and move around quite freely here – my mam’s more recognisable than me. People go up to her like, ​‘You’re Jade’s parent!’” she says in her Geordie accent. ​“That’s why I moved around here, to be honest. It’s a little softer, really pretty. I was living near Canary Wharf [before] and it’s so soulless. It worked well when I was travelling a lot, but when I actually had to stay there I was like, this is really grim.”

The 31-year-old lives here with her boyfriend Jordan Stephens (one-half of Brighton hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks) and her best friend from school, Holly, both of whom came into Jade’s life at formative moments. She met Holly, for example, at secondary school in her hometown of South Shields. At the time, Jade was being relentlessly bullied, compounded by the fact she was one of the only people of colour at her school. Eventually, she was assigned a mentor to look after her, who happened to be one of Holly’s friends. ​“Holly always says she was like, ​‘Oh God, we’re stuck with this loser!’” Jade explains. ​“Then she obviously found out that I’m the most fabulous person and, yeah, best friends ever since.”

She was introduced to Jordan, on the other hand, by a friend during lockdown in 2020, which, lest we forget, meant Zoom dates and socially-distanced walks in the park. It may not sound like an ideal foundation for romance, but for Jade, whose world up until that point had revolved around tours and music videos and album releases, it was a ​“godsend”, as she puts it. ​“It was kind of towards the end of the Little Mix process – the girls were pregnant and Jesy had left,” she says. ​“So [things were] kind of winding down. I think maybe it was meant to be that it happened at that point in my life, where I had time to build a relationship.”

Still, leaving the band wasn’t easy. How do you come down from a high like Little Mix? Over 11 years, they sold an estimated 75 million records worldwide, spent more than 100 weeks in the UK’s top 10 and, in 2021, became the first girl band to win the BRIT Award for Best British Group. (See also: Jade’s excellent clapback at Noel Gallagher after he suggested they didn’t have the musical chops to warrant said award.) Little Mix were not only pop stars, but role models for a generation of young girls, belting out songs about feminism, break-ups and body image with equal enthusiasm. Jade, the baby of the band, was only 18 when Little Mix won The X Factor in 2011. Immediately, she was handed a record contract, a lawyer, an accountant and a military-precise schedule for the first decade of her adult life.

“If I looked at my diary a year in advance, it was always filled,” she says. “[Every single thing] was planned out for me. And because I loved [working] so much, I always prioritised that over anything – relationships, family and friends. Even when I had partners in the past, I was like, well, the love of my life is my job. I was addicted to being a pop girl – that was everything, and it still is. But I do think I’ve got a better balance now between work and life.”

That’s partly why Jade is the last of the Little Mix members to release solo music. She needed to discover herself before stepping back into the limelight. ​“The first few months were definitely me avoiding acknowledging that it was over,” she says, laughing. After Little Mix took their final bow at London’s O2 Arena in May 2022, she immediately booked a holiday with her mates. Then: another holiday with Jordan, followed by a stint in Budapest while he filmed a music video, more getaways with friends in the British countryside, and trips up north to spend time with her family. ​“I just wasn’t still, because I knew I might have a bit of a menty b if I did. I saw the girls more than anyone else in my life, we were joined at the hip, so I really did have to learn how to exist without them – you know, a lot of therapy, yoga, meditation, walking the dogs in the forest.”

Eventually, Jade made it to LA, where much of her new music was written. Finding her own sound was a process of experimentation, and she made a point of working with as many new writers and producers as possible. The resulting album, dropping next year, is a reflection of that. ​“I’ve pulled from all of my inspirations, from growing up with Diana Ross to clubbing,” Jade says (she loves nightlife so much she even owns a bar in South Shields.) Last week, she surprise-dropped Midnight Cowboy, not an official single but a banger nonetheless, a prowling house-inflected track written with Raye. Two more singles are on the way, That’s Showbiz, Baby (think: Angel of My Dream​’s more crystallised, clubrat sister) and Fantasy, a transcendent disco track with Donna Summer-style vocals, which is all ​“about sexual fantasies and feeling safe enough with someone to tell them what you want to do – kind of like a love song, but a fun, kinky one.

“It took a really long time to do this album because I was finding myself and I was working with so many different people, which is quite exhausting, constantly going to these new rooms, bearing your soul every time,” Jade says. ​“I think this album had to be a bit of a mismatch of songs. I was like, well, it should just reflect that chaos.”

Despite Noel Gallagher’s misguided assumptions, Jade has always been a part of the songwriting process, from Little Mix’s debut single Wings to Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea’s 2015 collab Pretty Girls. But earning respect for this element of her artistry hasn’t always been easy: it took Jade and her bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock eight years to receive a publishing deal that officially recognised them as songwriters. ​“That’s part of the negatives of being in a girl band, people don’t take you seriously. They didn’t think we were capable of being songwriters,” she says, shrugging it off like old news. Sexism in the music industry is hardly a breaking story, of course. And no matter how many records you sell, it seems that no woman is immune to its pervasive culture of misogyny.

“I’ve been in situations in the past that have not been great, like personal experiences with certain producers or whatever,” Jade says, a little more carefully. ​“And even at the peak of my career, I’ve been scared to speak out about it, in case it ruined [things]. You think: everyone’s gonna believe that person, and then was it even worth saying?” She’s still nervous about speaking out but recognises it’s an experience many will relate to. ​“I think every woman experiences some sort of sexual harassment or assault at some point in their career. And I am surprised that even at our level, my level, it was still quite easily done. People feel like they’re so powerful that they can get away with it. But I think everything comes out.

“I totally understand the power of when someone comes forward,” she continues. ​“Sometimes I do have to battle with if or when I should say something. But being prepared to open yourself up to that, all the backlash and stuff that comes with it… We’ll see.”

Jade finds it easier to channel this energy into speaking up for others. Longtime fans will know she’s always been outspoken on political issues, long before it became a standard expectation from our biggest pop stars. The singer’s a staunch ally of the LGBTQ+ community, having worked closely with Stonewall since her early twenties, and you’ll often spot her at protests, be it Black Lives Matter or rallies in support of the trans community. Most importantly, though, she stays informed, avoids performative ​“basic bitch activism” (her words, not ours) and doesn’t mind being put in her place every once in a while.

“[You’ve got to be] open to being read to filth sometimes – if you get it wrong, hold yourself accountable,” she says. ​“I think that’s a key part of being an ally in the right way.” She remembers being called out for Little Mix’s Confetti music video, which featured the girls dressed in drag. ​“That was such an exciting thing to do. Then afterwards, we were called out on the fact that we didn’t invite any actual drag kings [in the video]. I was like, you know what? Fair.”

This political streak is also part of what initially attracted Jade to Jordan. ​“When we met up at a Black trans march once, he turned up in a skirt but not in a performative way, just like: ​‘And what?’” she says. ​“That’s when I started to fall in love with him a bit. It was cool to see someone who was open with their femininity and saying what they believe in with their chest.”

Jade’s now sitting with her head in her hands, slumped in contemplation. This phase of her life puts her in a peculiar position. Few people reach the apex of British pop, then have the opportunity to do it all over again – this time, with the advantage of being completely in charge of their own narrative. She’s under no illusions that her Little Mix laurels will guarantee her solo success; Jade’s more than aware of how fickle the music industry can be. But she’s no longer chasing stardom, approval or even numbers (although Angel of My Dream​’s top 10 debut still felt pretty good). What matters more than anything right now is doing what she loves best: performing.

“I want to tour on my own. I don’t care how big it is, I just want to be on the stage doing my own music,” Jade says with a wistful smile. ​“I guess a critically-acclaimed album would be lovely. But I just want to travel the world and do what I love to do, whatever scale it is. I’m just proud to be making my own music. And I want to see more female artists winning.”