Little Mix's Leigh-Anne Pinnock Reveals How She Deals with Online Abuse

Leigh-Anne Pinnock wears clothing by Umbro on the cover of Rollacoaster magazine’s Spring/Summer 2019 issue.

Here is what the 27-year-old Little Mix singer had to share with the mag:

On dealing with online abuse: “I definitely feel that it’s taken me a long while to completely feel comfortable in the skin that I’m in. Sadly we live in a society that is inbuilt with racism and I just hope that by speaking up on my personal experience, I can help raise some awareness on this f–ked up situation. I really did feel invisible and replaceable for a considerable amount of time within the band, but I truly believe as the years have gone on I’m beginning to own it more and more. I’ve always been proud of who I am but maybe for a while I forgot how special and powerful that is. Being black is powerful, being black is beautiful and I’m ready to shout it to the world!”

On fame after X Factor: “We didn’t really have any time to process it, it was just like ‘Boom!’ Obviously for me, it was my dream so I loved every second of it, but the negativity and the trolling? I fought it really hard.”

On new Little Mix music: “We knew that we wanted to make [LM5] much more ballsy. We knew we had to write about what was going on. There’s so many things that we want to talk about that are happening in the world and I think it’s just really important. It’s not all about boys and sex, it’s good to talk about things that actually mean something.”

For more from Leigh-Anne, pre-order your issue right now!