Little Mix was originally split into two groups.
The foursome – made up of Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Jesy Nelson – soared to global fame after winning the 2011 series of ‘The X Factor’, but it’s now emerged judges were so confused about who to include in the final line-up they were put in separate groups.
Perrie, 31, told Radio 2’s ‘Tracks of My Years’ show about how they were finally put in one band as they were all 5ft 3in tall and judges thought they looked good together: “We were actually in two separate groups. Me and Jesy were in a group with two other girls, and Jade and Leigh-Anne were in a different group with another girl.
“They tried so many different formulas on the show. It just didn’t work. We all got No’s.
“Then they were like, ‘Actually can you four come back?’ They based it on our heights.
“They were like, ‘These four girls will work because they’re all the same height’.”
Perrie stressed about how she has no bitterness about how the band were put together by chance: “I’m so grateful. It changed our lives completely.”
Despite their huge fame and earnings, Little Mix was rocked by 33-year-old Jesy Nelson’s decision to quit the group in December 2020.
Leigh-Anne, 33, recently said the remaining three members of the band secretly sought therapy after Jesy’s abrupt exit.
She said in her autobiography ‘Believe’: “It was a complex and painful thing to come to terms with. We all felt it, that pain and sadness. “The whole thing felt like a weird break-up, and I wasn’t prepared for it.
“I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of those emotions.
“The whole thing was abrupt and sad and then it was messy, which made it even more painful.”
Before Jesy’s exit, Little Mix were inseparable for almost a decade, and became the biggest girl group since Spice Girls, selling millions of records and achieving five UK No1s.
At the time she quit, Jesy said she was struggling with her mental health and struggles with the pressures of fame.