Little Mix - Little Mix - Ready to Fly

When I was 16 I started performing gigs in local pubs and clubs. I can’t even count how many shows I did back then. I did everything that came my way. Around the same time I started going to house parties and being much more sociable, so I guess I had more of a balance. Singing always came first for me, though.

I first decided to try out for The X Factor in 2008. I was 15 and even though I did a lot of performing I was still a really nervous person. Singing was what gave me confidence, so I decided to give The X Factor a go. I didn’t really know what I was doing; I literally just turned up and sang. I made it through to the first stage of Bootcamp, but then unfortunately I was sent home. I was heartbroken and I cried for weeks.

Simon told me to keep coming back as I was only young, but I took a break the next year to concentrate on my GCSEs.

I nearly didn’t try out the next year either. I thought because Joe McElderry had won they wouldn’t want someone from the same place again. But my mam encouraged me and I felt happier about doing it because I kind of knew what I was doing. I got to the end of Bootcamp that time, but I didn’t cry when I got cut because I’d already decided to come back the following year.

That same year I won the Pride of South Tyneside Young Performer of the Year 2010 Award, which felt like an amazing achievement and spurred me on to try for The X Factor one last time! At that time I was doing A-levels in English literature, fine art and media studies, and I was planning on doing a fine art degree, so that was going to be my back-up if I was cut from The X Factor again.

I was doing quite a lot of gigs around the North East. I mainly sang Motown tracks, because I grew up listening to that music thanks to my mam and my Great Auntie Norma. I was also teaching singing and dancing at a theatre school, so it was all good practice for the show.

Jade putting on an early performance

Jade on her fourth birthday

JESY:I grew up around Essex with my younger brother Joe and my older brother and sister, Johnny and Jade. We lived in 12 different houses growing up, and even had a stint in Cornwall, but we moved back when my brothers got scouted for West Ham football club when I was 10.

We all really loved performing, and when I look back at videos from when we’re younger we’re all singing and dancing along to songs, and using whisks and hairbrushes as microphones. I always thought Jade would end up being the performer, but she’s now a football coach for West Ham and my brothers do building work with my uncle.

I was a funny little thing when I was small. I had really curly hair and I was quite eccentric. I looked a bit like Peter Andre’s daughter Princess. I was always telling stories and putting on funny little accents. Looking back you could tell I was always going to be a performer. I was really confident and outgoing.

I guess I’ve always been quite theatrical and I started off wanting to be an actress, so aged eight I began going to a Saturday theatre school. Once I was in a performance of Annie and had to sing on my own, and my voice went all funny because I was so nervous. I think that really affected me and gave me a fear of singing. When you’re dancing, nerves can be a good thing because they can give you extra energy, but when you’re singing your throat dries up and you feel really panicked, and there’s nothing worse.

When I was about 12 I went to the Sylvia Young Theatre School, which was in Marylebone then. Rita Ora was in my class, and Vanessa from The Saturdays was also there at the same time as me. That’s when I first started beat boxing. I don’t do it properly, I just kind of mess around, but I really enjoy it. There were three boys in school who used to do it all the time and I thought it was so cool, so I got them to teach me and I’ve done it ever since.

I loved Sylvia Young’s, but a part of me didn’t want to be branded as a stage-school kid because I always wanted to be myself. I didn’t like being given elocution lessons and being told to speak properly. We’re all different, and the world would be boring if we were all the same. I didn’t want to be something I wasn’t.

After I left there I couldn’t get into the schools I wanted to go to because they were full, so I went to one near my house that I hated. I got picked on and I couldn’t wait to leave. One of my teachers told me about this new school in Dagenham called Jo Richardson’s which was just being built and was going to be specialising in music and dance. I ended up going there for the last three years of my schooling, and that’s when I got even more into music and drama.

At school the subjects I tried hardest in were the ones I loved, like drama, singing and dancing. I used to lose concentration in science and maths. To me there was no point in trying hard in those lessons, because I didn’t want to be a mathematician or a scientist. My science teacher told me off for not working hard enough, and I turned round and said that I didn’t need science because I wanted to be a singer. He looked at me like I was mad, but I knew in my heart it was all I wanted.

Later on I got really into street dancing. The Diversity dance troupe who won Britain’s Got Talent used to put on shows around the country, and one day I was in Lakeside Shopping Centre with my mum and they were performing. I told my mum I wanted to do what they did, but I never imagined I could. I went along to one of their classes and that was it. I was hooked. I joined the sister girl group called Out of the Shadows, and from then on it was all I wanted to do.

Before I auditioned for The X Factor I was working in a bar and really enjoying it. I’d had quite a hard time from other girls at school, which gave my confidence a bit of a knock, but working in the bar and meeting so many people and having to interact with strangers really helped to build it up again. But I knew I couldn’t do it for the rest of my life. I kept thinking about auditioning, but the only person I’d ever sung in front of was my best friend Solitaire, so I was really nervous about other people seeing me. I’d watched the show and seen the massive queues of people and thought I’d never have a chance. In the end she convinced me to go for it, and the next thing I knew I was filling out the form.

Jesy and her brother Joe on holiday

Jesy in a school photo aged five

Jesy aged ten

LEIGH-ANNE:It may seem hard to believe, but I was really shy as a child, and I always used to say to my dad, ‘I don’t like peoples!’ I loved my mum and my dad, Debbie and John, and my older sisters, Sarah and Sian. But I was quite closed off from other people. I didn’t have any hair for ages, so I used to look like a boy. Then, when it did grow, I got this huge afro that used to stick out all over the place!