{"id":502071,"date":"2026-06-16T07:05:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T07:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/502071\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T07:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T07:05:23","slug":"perrie-edwards-shares-why-breakup-with-zayn-was-so-hellish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/502071\/","title":{"rendered":"Perrie Edwards shares why breakup with Zayn was so \u201chellish”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perrie Edwards<\/a> has spoken candidly about her split from Zayn Malik<\/a>\u00a0and said that she found it \u201chellish\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n

The former Little Mix<\/a> star was in a relationship with the ex-One Direction<\/a> singer from 2012, having met while competing on the eighth season of The X Factor<\/a>. They were engaged for two years, before splitting in 2015.<\/p>\n

Speaking on a recent episode of the Great Company podcast with Jamie Laing, Edwards opened up about the split for one of the first times and said that it led to her feeling \u201cabandoned\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go through heartbreak, it is hellish,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t eat. You can\u2019t sleep. You feel horrendous. You feel abandoned, and you don\u2019t feel good enough, and you feel like you\u2019ve been left for something better.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also opened up about how Zayn started a relationship with model Gigi Hadid shortly after they separated, and likely had an easier time with the split being in the public eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat [made] it even worse is I felt like the world was then looking at me, laughing at me,\u201d she shared. \u201cWhen you\u2019re moving on with somebody else, you always get on better. When you\u2019re the one left behind, that\u2019s when it\u2019s hard. Because it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh shit, they\u2019ve left me for someone more beautiful. They\u2019ve met someone better than me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Zayn and Hadid dated on and off for around six years and welcomed a daughter in 2020, before breaking up the following year. The model also featured in the video for his hit solo single \u2018Pillowtalk<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Making reference to that music video, Edwards said that there was \u201can overlap\u201d between Zayn seeing her and starting a relationship with Hadid, and suggested that the song \u2018Pillowtalk\u2019 was written about her, even though it featured the model.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just gonna say it \u2014 there was a bit of an overlap,\u201d she explained. \u201cThen you have a song that they\u2019ve written about you, but then someone else is in the video\u2026 It was one thing after the other after the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember finding out about that. It was just the nail in the coffin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zayn has not publicly responded to the statements made by Edwards. NME has reached out to his team for comment.<\/p>\n

Also in the interview with Jamie Laing, Edwards has opened up about her \u201cdifficult\u201d relationship with Jesy Nelson<\/a> during their time in Little Mix. Nelson left the group in 2020, <\/a>saying at the time that being in the line-up had \u201ctaken a toll on my mental health\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n

Opening up about the departure from the group, Edwards said in the podcast that Nelson was \u201cdifficult\u201d to work with, and added: \u201cSometimes you just won\u2019t win with people. I don\u2019t want to seem like a bitch, but what upsets me the most is when the other person doesn\u2019t take accountability. That boils my blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying she\u2019s this fucking monster, and everything was her fault, but take some accountability for your actions and realise that you were difficult, you had difficult moments,\u201d she added. \u201cGranted, there was reasons for those moments, but you can only pick somebody up so many fucking times before you start losing track of your own sanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those comments align with what Edwards told NME in 2024<\/a>, when she opened up about the \u201cheartbreaking\u201d rift between her and her former bandmate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t talk, and haven\u2019t done for a long time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really sad, it\u2019s heartbreaking. But sometimes these things happen and people decide they want to part ways, and that\u2019s absolutely fine. I would rather it went differently, but you can\u2019t control how things go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Little Mix<\/a> announced a hiatus in 2022, Edwards shared a debut single \u2018Forget About Us\u2019<\/a> in April 2024, and dropped her debut solo album \u2018Perrie<\/a>\u2019 last September. That record also featured a collaboration with RAYE<\/a>, whom Edwards called \u201cthe most talented human I\u2019ve ever witnessed in the flesh\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for Jesy Nelson, in January 2025 the singer announced that she was pregnant with twins<\/a>. Two months later, she shared she had to have an emergency procedure<\/a> after a warning that her babies \u201ccould die\u201d. The operation was a success<\/a>, and her daughters were born in May 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n

In January 2026, Nelson revealed that she had been given news that her twins had a rare muscular condition <\/a>called spinal muscle atrophy, adding that they will \u201cprobably never walk\u201d, and she later made an appeal after a car containing her daughters\u2019 medical equipment was stolen.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perrie Edwards has spoken candidly about her split from Zayn Malik\u00a0and said that she found it \u201chellish\u201d at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278,641],"class_list":["post-502071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-pop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}