Ally Brooke is once again speaking out about the toxicity she experienced during her time in Fifth Harmony.
“I hate saying this: My time in Fifth Harmony, I didn't enjoy it. I didn't love it,” Brooke said during the premiere episode of her podcast The Ally Brooke Show.
“It was hard because there was so much going on. So much toxicity, so much abuse, so much abusive power, so much mental abuse, verbal abuse, and it's just horrible and to me, it's a shame because we were so big and I should have enjoyed myself more.”
Brooke said she and group mates Camila Cabello, Normani, Lauren Jauregui and Dinah Jane “took over the world” and “took the music industry and the entertainment industry by storm.” But, she said, “there’s a weird balance of being grateful and being okay with the fact that things were not okay for me. It was traumatizing.”
Though she didn’t give specific examples of the alleged abuse, Brooke recalled “inappropriateness within the label” and repeated details of an incident she included in her 2020 memoir Finding Your Harmony with a man from whom she sought advice early on.
“I show up to meet with him and he gives me a freaking thong, which is very inappropriate because I know what he was trying to do there, and I was humiliated,” she said. “One, I'm going to him super vulnerable and exposed and [asking] please help me, please help us.”
Fifth Harmony called it quits in 2018.
Brooke said she was telling her story in hopes other young women in the industry will feel comfortable speaking up.
“There's a better way to live and thrive in this industry.”