Leigh-Anne Pinnock has described her 2021 “blackfishing” beef with Jesy Nelson and Nicki Minaj as “one of the most difficult moments” in her career.
After she quit Little Mix, Jesy launched her solo career in October 2021 with the song “Boyz,” featuring Nicki, and she was accused of “black fishing,” or pretending to be Black, in the music video.
Leaked Instagram messages subsequently appeared online, seemingly showing Jesy’s former bandmate Leigh-Anne calling her a “black fish” and a “horrible person,” and Nicki called out Leigh-Anne during an Instagram Live with Jesy.
Reflecting on the incident in her memoir, “Believe,” Pinnock explained that “the horrific online row” was hard because she was still recovering from the birth of her twins two months earlier.
“It was one of the most difficult moments I can remember throughout my career,” she recalled. “In the moment, it felt truly awful. As much as I tried to avoid Instagram and Twitter, I kept seeing the comments and the debates that were taking place on every platform. Even when I put my phone away and refused to look at it there was still this underlying anxiety about what was happening online.”
The 32-year-old then credited her newborns with helping her make peace with the dispute.
“Something so beautiful pulled me out of that horrible spiral – one of my (babies) smiled at me for the first time,” she continued. “How could I care about what people were saying about me on Instagram when something so rare and magical as my baby’s smile existed in the world? It didn’t matter. None of it did.”
Nicki Minaj aimed Leigh-Anne during an Instagram Live with Jesy to promote their collaboration.
“If you was in this woman’s group and you ain’t talk about this s### for ten years and as soon as you see she got a video coming out with Nicki Minaj and Puffy (P Diddy), now you sending text messages,” Nicki Minaj raged. “If you want a solo career, baby girl, just say that. Only jealous people do things like this.”