Little Mix's Leigh-Anne Pinnock opens up over racism experience in new documentary

Little Mix's Leigh-Anne Pinnock has been speaking out about her experiences of racism in her life and the music industry in a new documentary which aired on 4th August on Channel 4 . The Talk featured various other celebrities, including Rochelle and Marvin Humes, as well as Diversity brothers Ashley and Jordan Banjo.

The programme highlighted the physical and mental struggles black people have had to face during their life, following the tragic death of George Floyd.

Channel 4's description of the show is as follows, "‘The Talk’ in the black community is to prepare children for the reality of living in a society where their skin colour marks them out for a lifetime of challenges white people may not understand.

"The first talk normally happens around age 4-7 and marks the day a child loses their innocence. Parents have to explain that, because of the colour of their skin, some people think they are less worthy of respect. Children are taught what to expect and how to react; advice based on experiences suffered by family, friends and neighbours."

In the programme, the recently-engaged singer, who's parents also featured on the show said, discussed receiving racist abuse at an early age, revealing, "In primary school, a boy wrote on a bit of paper, 'Name: Leigh-Anne. Age: Nine. Nationality: Jungle.'

"I saw it, and my heart just dropped. I knew it racism. I was nine years old, I knew it was racism. I was just distraught by it."

The singer also opened up about winning The X Factor and what she was told almost immediately after the win. She emotionally recalled, "I got told, “You’re the black girl, you’ve got to work 10 times harder.

"I just wish that I knew more back then, I just wish that I was more educated on this and I knew that, yeah, your race will hold you back a little bit. I just wish I knew that so I could prepare myself."

It comes after the Holiday singer opened up on This Morning about her battles with racism in the music industry. She told hosts Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, "I just didn’t feel like enough people cared, like enough people were listening.

"Obviously, this is the first time in my life that the whole world is speaking about racism, speaking about black lives. I’m just so overwhelmed by it and I just thought, you know, what I feel like I need to kind of get rid of this pain that I’ve been carrying around for nine years."

Leigh-Anne is following in the footsteps on her band-mate Jesy Nelson, who released her documentary The Odd One Out last year, which documented her struggles with online bullying and mental health. The star went on to win an NTA for her work, with the programme now being shown in schools across the country.

Check out Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Andre Gray's relationship timeline

Listen to KISS, KISSTORY and KISS Fresh on digital radio, via our free app, by hitting that play button on the bottom of your screen and on your smart speaker (‘Play KISS FM’, ‘Play KISSTORY’, ‘Play KISS Fresh’).