Ex-Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson is joking about ‘turning lesbian’. Again

Jesy Nelson and Emily Atack

Former Little Mix member Jesy Nelson has joked that she would “turn lesbian” for I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! star Emily Atack.

According to Atack’s Instagram story, the two women met friends for dinner together on Sunday (10 October).

In one video captioned “Sundays with angels”, Atack described Nelson as “my little Barbie”, and Nelson responded: “I would turn lesbian for this lady – I’m not even joking.”

Jesy Nelson has previously joked about being gay, and once said she “wishes” she were a lesbian. 

In a carbon copy of a sentence every actual lesbian has heard from their straight friends, Nelson told The Guardian earlier this year: “I wish I liked women, I really do.”

Nelson, whose sister Jade is a lesbian, continued: “I said that to my sister the other day because she’s gay.

“I said: ‘Jade, I wish I loved women,’ and she was like: ‘Well, just try it – you never know.’

“And I said” ‘No, I love men too much.’ I just love the way men smell, I love muscles, and women don’t have that, do they?”

When the interviewer pointed out that some women do have those same attributes, the singer replied: “Ha ha! I’ll never rule it out, I’ll just say that.”

Jesy Nelson responds to blackfishing allegations

Nelson, who left Little Mix last year, released her first solo single “Boyz”, featuring Nicki Minaj, on Friday (8 October).

The song and music video are built around a prominent sample of Diddy’s “Bad Boys for Life”, and see Nelson sing about liking bad boys who are “so hood, so good, so damn taboo”.

Nelson has faced immense criticism on social media since the release of “Boyz”, with many accusing her of blackfishing – changing one’s appearance to appear Black or “racially ambiguous”.

This can include using make-up to appear darker-skinned, having fillers to mimic Black features, and co-opting clothing and hairstyles popularised by Black people (largely women). The song and video have also fielded other accusations of cultural appropriation.

These allegations – which have previously been levelled at Nelson – were put to her in an interview with Vulture.

She claimed: “The whole time I was in Little Mix I never got any of that. And then I came out of [the band] and people all of a sudden were saying it. I wasn’t on social media around that time, so I let my team [deal with it], because that was when I’d just left.

“But I mean, like, I love Black culture. I love Black music. That’s all I know; it’s what I grew up on. I’m very aware that I’m a white British woman; I’ve never said that I wasn’t.”