Jade Thirlwall wishes Jesy Nelson's departure from Little Mix exit had been "handled differently"

She told The Guardian newspaper: "It was incredibly painful. For all of us that was the worst part, and it's taken a lot of understanding and therapy and all those things to work out how that can happen when you've devoted so much time and love to someone.

"My biggest wish for that whole period is that it was handled differently. I just would've loved us to all sit and chat about it."

Jade went on to add: "We absolutely adored Jesy like family - it wasn't just work. We all wanted to protect her, because we understood that trauma there and what she'd been through.

"I think we handled it as best as we could ... Obviously we don't speak any more, and things happened that I don't think should have, but I still do feel an element of protection towards Jesy.

"Nobody fully understands how complex the whole thing was - it wasn't just a case of someone wanting to leave. Numerous things built up in the last year and in the back of my mind I knew it was going to happen. I'd just like for it to have happened in a ... better way."

The remaining stars of Little Mix - Jade, Perrie Edwards and Leigh-Anne Pinnock - went on hiatus in 2022 and Perrie previously admitted she's still devastated about the loss of her friendship with Jesy.

During an appearance on Fearne Cotton's Happy Place podcast, Perrie explained: "I wrote a song about it, and it's about a friendship that I had, which I no longer have. I mentioned it in an interview, and so many people reached out to me.

"It's not really spoken about. When you hear a heartbreak song, it's about a relationship or a significant other, and it's like, Unbreak my heart.

"But when it's a friend, you don't hear about it much in music, so I was like, 'I am going to write something about it because it's just as heartbreaking, if not worse'."

She added: "When you have been in that person's life for years, and they have had your back, and you have been through highs, lows, everything and all of these experiences, it's a wild ride, but you are in it together, and then poof, they're gone ...

"That is hard to deal with. I struggled a lot with that. It was really sad, but at the same time, these things happen, and it makes you think, 'Do we try to rectify the situation? Do I reach out? I feel like I should just stay away.' It's a really horrible dynamic to be in.

"You can't force somebody to be friends with you. If they don't want to be friends, they don't want to be friends. But, yes, it's really hard."