Jesy Nelson of British pop act Little Mix has revealed that insults on social media drove her to try to end her life.
“I felt that I physically couldn’t tolerate the pain any more,” the singer told The Guardian of her 2013 suicide attempt.
Nelson, 28, said she was bombarded with nasty comments about her weight and appearance after winning The X Factor in 2011.
“I had a routine of waking up, going on Twitter, searching for the worst things I could about myself,” she explained. “I’d type in the search bar: ‘Jesy fat’, or ‘Jesy ugly’, and see what would come up. Sometimes I didn’t even need to do that, I’d just write ‘Jesy’ and then I’d see all the horrible things. Everyone told me to ignore it – but it was like an addiction.”
Nelson said all she cared about was what strangers were saying about her. “I’d starve myself … I’d drink Diet Coke for a solid four days and then, when I felt a bit dizzy, I’d eat a pack of ham because I knew it had no calories. Then I’d binge eat, then hate myself.”
Nelson said the best thing she ever did was get off Twitter in early 2014. “It wasn’t until I deleted Twitter that everything changed for me and I slowly started to feel normal again,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I still have days when I feel s**t in myself but instead of beating myself up about it and being miserable, I think: ‘OK, I’m going to have my moment of being sad, and I’ll be over it.’ Before, I didn’t let myself be sad.”
The pop star said she hopes people realize the effects social media and online trolling can have. Nelson is back on Twitter with the tools to process what she sees.
“Now I’m mentally a lot happier, I just think people are always going to have an opinion,” she said. “But I only care about mine.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, click here to get help.