Little Mix’s Jesy Nelson is making a documentary for the BBC, exploring body image and mental health because she “wants to make a change and a difference to other people’s lives”.
According to a press release announcing the film, Jesy will look at “how growing up in a social media-fuelled age of selfies, body-shaming and trolling is having a profound impact on the mental health of young people”.
She singer said: “This is a project really close to my heart, and I’m delighted to be working with the BBC on a documentary that will both challenge me personally and also highlight a hugely important issue affecting young people today.”
Jesy also posted a short video on Instagram following the official announcement, writing underneath it: “Mental health awareness is something we should all be talking about more. Having suffered myself I decided I want to do something about it.
“So I’m pleased to announce I’m making a film with the BBC, telling my own personal story and exploring how social media, body shaming and trolling is affecting the mental health of young people.”
In the video she says it’s a subject which “personally I think we don’t speak about enough”.
The doc has the working title Jesy Nelson: My Story and will premiere on BBC Three before airing on BBC One.
During her time in the band, Jesy has often spoken candidly about body image and last year, spoke out about the effect negative comments from trolls previously had on her.
She told HuffPost UK last year: “When I first started out, I never wanted to talk about my weight. I was like, ‘for fuck’s sake, is this all I’m ever going to be known for?’.
“I wanted to be known as just the singer in the group, I didn’t wanna be known as ‘the fat one’ or ‘the one who’s bigger than the others’. It was just so draining, and I just thought, ‘if I don’t talk about this, then hopefully it’ll go away’.
“But then I was like, ‘fuck it’, we need to talk about it, because the more we do, the more we are empowering girls to look at themselves in the mirror and go, ‘I’m a normal girl, there’s nothing wrong with my body, this is normal, and I should love this’, instead of looking at Instagram and comparing themselves to other girls… that is probably not real anyway, and is filtered and FaceTuned.
She’s also previously rebuked people for posting derogatory comments on Instagram, telling her followers that “anything negative will get blocked”.
An air date for the documentary will be announced in due course.
