A Timeline of Jesy Nelson’s Disastrous Solo Debut – What Went Wrong?

As ever, my Twitter timeline was a mess this weekend. Looming fears over an announcement from Boris Johnson, controversies over Formula One results, but one thing that always seems to reoccur recently was back on my feed again - memes about Jesy Nelson.

Following her appearance at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball, my homepage was awash with jokes about Jesy’s live performance of ‘Boyz’ at the event. When you look at the actual performance at face value, there’s not much to cause a stir about, but there’s been a long bumpy road and lots of controversy that has produced this public backlash that coincides with every appearance Nelson makes.

Having only left Little Mix 12 months ago, Nelson’s decision was met with support and understanding from many Little Mix fans as well as her ex-bandmates. It was a shock to many because unlike many other girl bands that came before Little Mix, something about the group felt untouchable, and that’s likely because of their unproblematic status. In their decade together, there was never any real backlash to anything they did, or publicly any disputes between the members. Nelson also received wide support from the public following her Odd One Out documentary in 2019, where she spoke about her struggles with body image and her mental health.

Most of the beginning of 2021 was quiet on the news front from Jesy Nelson, who after announcing upcoming solo music, was in the studio recording upcoming tracks ahead of her debut Boyz, eventually released in October and featuring Nicki Minaj, sampling Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy For Life with a replica music video to match, featuring Diddy himself.

A mere minutes after the debut of the music video, Nelson was met with accusations of ‘‘blackfishing’’, a term referring to those who adopt aesthetics derived from Black women, or anyone attempting to present themselves as racially ambiguous. And there’s more than just appearance that comes into play with the release, copying previous US rap aesthetics and adorned with tooth-caps, chains, and baggy clothing. Even recreating the music video which, in its original form, was intended to portray Diddy disturbing a rich neighbourhood with his rap sound, aesthetics and entourage could be deemed problematic.

These accusations had already put a cloud over Jesy’s debut release, but the controversy continued to snowball following a live stream featuring Nelson on Nicki Minaj’s Instagram later that week. In this live stream, Nelson would also go on to mention that ex-bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock had highlighted the issue of Jesy’s skin tone to her privately following the music video for Sweet Melody, the final Little Mix music video that Jesy appeared in.

Minaj would then go on to fuel the fire and defend Jesy against blackfishing allegations, but also weigh-in on drama between Nelson and her ex-bandmates, calling Leigh-Anne a clown during an expletive-filled rant, to which Jesy did not step in once to defend her fellow bandmate, and was even seen laughing at Nicki’s tirade at points. In traditional Nicki fashion, she would then go on to continue tweeting about Leigh-Anne across social media that day.

These heavily controversial comments got even more people talking about Jesy, and not a lot of it positive, with a Twitter space forming later that night titled ‘Messy Nelson’, attracting thousands of listeners and speakers who shared their views on the events.

If the controversies of blackfishing weren’t enough, not defending her ex-bandmates who she has been associated with for a decade on a public platform with thousands of viewers wasn’t going to help her retain any love from the Little Mix fans. To make matters worse, Little Mix fans were once again criticising Jesy a mere few weeks later as photos emerged of Jesy drunkenly flirting with Lucien Laviscount, an ex of Leigh-Anne.

All of this means Jesy is now essentially starting a solo career by cutting off a lot of her pre-existing fanbase before she’s even properly got going.

The stark contrast from the public’s opinion of Nelson in Little Mix compared to now in such a short amount of time is what makes the whole situation so surreal, and begs the question could management, and Jesy herself, have marketed this roll out differently to deflect any of the backlash that soon followed.

Which brings us back to the Jingle Bell Ball. While the discussion about Nelson had settled down over recent weeks, it all came flooding back when Jesy walked the red carpet prior to the event, wearing a jacket by the brand Market Black, with her hair covering the ‘Market’ part of the name on the jacket, leading a lot of people to believe the disastrous faux pas was in fact deliberate for media attention from either Jesy or her management, although this has been denied by Jesy’s team. However, it remains yet another disastrous oversight in an already chaotic rollout. 

And that’s without mentioning the live performance, which was met with a muted response in the arena and ridiculed for the dramatic entrance, ‘stank face’ and constant sticking out of the tongue on social media. Videos emerged of people laughing in the arena during at the performance on TikTok, and even Matt Hancock, who for whatever reason was invited to Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball that night, apparently didn’t stay around for the full song.

While all of this online criticism is turbulent for Jesy’s music rollout and is a prime example in how not to launch your debut solo career, some will make the argument that any publicity is good publicity – after all, it was announced that Nelson is the eighth most searched for musician in 2021, alongside the likes of Adele and Britney Spears.

So… what’s next? It’s evident that even two months after the initial drama, people aren’t going to forget what went down any time soon. Jesy announced at the weekend that she is working on a new single and music video for in the new year, with a ‘‘different vibe’’ to her debut – will this be used to do damage control and take a different direction, and is it too little too late? Or will those saying that the controversies are deliberate have even more evidence in the future?

With many Little Mix fans turning away from supporting Jesy, and the buzz of the big solo debut inevitably fizzling away with every release, people rightfully have their doubts as to whether Jesy can maintain the attention of the general public, and only time will tell.