Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock has found a "weight has lifted" since she candidly spoke about racism in an emotional video recently.
The 28-year-old spoke about her experiences of racism while being a member of the chart-topping group in a post on Instagram at the weekend, and on Tuesday, she explained why she made the video and talked about the response to it.
"I spoke about my experiences briefly last year and I just didn't feel like enough people cared, like enough people were listening," Leigh-Anne explained in an interview with British TV show This Morning.
"And obviously, this is the first time in my life that the whole world is speaking about racism, speaking about black lives and I was 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 and hopefully relate to people."
Despite her fears, the Black Magic hitmaker confirmed the response to her video has been overwhelmingly positive.
"It's actually been such a weight lifted for me," she said. "I was hearing from people who have been in the same sort of experiences that I have, so being the black girl in their band in the pop industry, saying how they felt exactly the same way as me and I've never ever had conversations with people who have had similar experiences as me."
Leigh-Anne also shared that when she tried to tell people how she felt, they would tell her "it's in your head" and reassure her the fans loved her.
"My team, I only have one mixed-race person that works for me. I'm touring to predominantly white countries, just that sort of sense of feeling like a misplacement sort of feeling, just not like I really belonged and I could only really speak to my family and some of my friends. I just felt like a lot of people didn't understand why I felt the way I did," she confessed.
