JADE has recalled her stint on The X Factor, saying she didn’t know anyone who came away from the show without “some sort of mental health issue”.
The singer-songwriter featured on the talent search programme in 2011 and joined girl group Little Mix when she was 18 years old, an experience she has reflected on in a new interview with The Independent.
The ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ singer admitted that being on The X Factor involved adjusting to “pretty fucked up” things, namely sharing bunk beds with other female contestants, regardless of age.
“Even at 18, I knew there were people who weren’t mentally well in there, keeping everyone up at night,” she said. “I don’t know if there was even security outside the house. It’s scary to think about now, but I was too young to realise that at the time.”
Her comments come after many entertainment world figures have demanded more protections be put in place for young artists following the death of One Direction star Liam Payne, who auditioned for The X Factor during the same series as Thirlwall.
Although she didn’t address Payne’s passing directly, she did mention thinking the series “had to end” after its 2018 conclusion.
“I don’t think that kind of show can exist any more. We’re in a different place now,” she added. “We wouldn’t put someone that’s mentally unwell on a TV screen and laugh at them while they sing terribly. The concept of a joke act on a show is just cruel.”
She said the concept was “all very Roman empire” while joking that it was the “best training ever” for her to enter the music industry. On a more sombre note, she continued: “I don’t know anyone that’s come off that show and not had some sort of mental health issue on the back of it.”
Thirwall also admitted to feeling “conflicted” about criticising the show. “It changed my life,” she explained. “I was from a very normal working-class family up north, I had tried sending demos in to labels, I’d gigged all over, I was doing everything I could to make it, and I needed a show like that to give me a chance.”
She continued to say that she’d guess “five per cent of the people that went on there have come out of it not unscathed, but having survived; the other 95 per cent have suffered in silence.”
Reflecting on how people readjust to normal life after participating in something like The X Factor, she said: “How do you go from being on that show to back to your nine-to-five? How do you get signed to the label, think you’ve made it, and then once your song doesn’t hit the Top 10, you’re just dropped? It’s so savage, this machine that we’re a part of. Even back then, we knew how lucky we were every day that we were still signed.”
In other news, JADE’s ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ came in at Number Five on NME‘s 50 Best Songs of 2024 list. “If there were a degree in pop music, then JADE is a star student,” the entry read. “From the eerie, distorted sample of Sandie Shaw’s ‘Puppet On A String’ to the frenzied, Xenomania-esque production, ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ is the work of a pop star who truly understands pop culture – and how to create a song that’s truly her own.”
