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Small wonder — it had been a long ride. The group formed on “The X Factor” in 2011 and quickly made a splash in the U.K., when their cover of Damien Rice’s “Cannonball” charted at No. 1 following their live performance. During their career, they racked up five U.K. No. 1 songs, 19 songs in the top 10, and one No. 1 album (“Glory Days”). Stateside, the girls did not achieve those same numbers, but were still well received, becoming the first British girl group with a debut album to chart in the Top 5 in the album’s first week.

In the aftermath of such a powerhouse group, Jade Thirlwall, by then 29, had to decide what came next. Sticking to music was a given, but what that would look like without two of her closest friends by her side was unclear.

“I had pretty much written a whole record by the summer after the hiatus,” she explains to Variety, just after her Lollapalooza set last month. “I’d got in my head that I’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot, got to stay relevant. Thankfully, some of my people around me were like, ‘Just wait and keep writing.’ In hindsight, I listen to some of that music, and it does just kind of sound like Little Mix.”

Of the group’s three members, it took her the longest to embark on her solo career, but she’s fine with it. “I really had to exist on my own for a bit, and be like, okay, who am I now, you know? It’s like when you break up with someone, and you all of a sudden have to find your identity again.”

Experimenting with her musical identity was only the first step. The real crux of her career boils down to the unexpected, and for inspiration, she turned to artists who, like her, had come out of groups and needed to take a risk to capture the world’s attention. This time, as an individual. “You get one chance to cement yourself as a solo artist coming out of a group; it’s a lot of pressure. My logic was, I’d rather come out fucking swinging with something brave and bold and might miss, but at least you can’t say I’ve not tried to do something big.”

For example, “I was really inspired by Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?” because she came out [as a solo artist] with that banger. I loved that the concept was about her not knowing what to write for her first record. Genius!

“So I was really drawn to artists that had come out of groups, and I think the thing I loved about those artists was they came out swinging and they took a risk, like Gwen did,” she continues. “You know, Beyoncé had no business bringing out a whole fucking brass band for ‘Crazy In Love,’ and doing that walk in the video,” she laughs.

And come out swinging she did. Thirlwall’s debut single “Angel of My Dreams” was released on July 14, 2024, just over two years after Little Mix’s hiatus began. The fast-tempo electropop song — and accompanying music video — details her “toxic, love-hate relationship” with the music industry, a theme she continued exploring in her debut album “That’s Showbiz Baby!” just over a year later. At the root of it all her perception of fame.

“I think [it’s] a drug. It’s addictive. And I think even the strongest artists that think they’re above it, or that they’re not bothered by being famous, have that human part of [them] that craves validation or attention, especially in this pop industry. It’s literally part of the job to remain relevant and have people talk about you. It’s really hard to not sort of base your life around that.”

She speaks from experience, saying that being back on a promotional run, this time for her solo album and without bandmates by her side, sucked her right back into things like “worrying about numbers, trying to feel relevant” and “checking all the comments.” In fact, the stress landed Thirlwall back in therapy, something she’d started while in Little Mix but had since taken a pause. All the things she thought she’d healed from post-Little Mix got “retriggered,” and it became clear that she wasn’t as far removed from that fame-plagued caricature as she thought.

But she says with a smile that it was a lesson she needed. “I really do have a much healthier relationship out of the back of ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’ I know going into this next record, some might argue that it’s even more pressure, but this is the bonus round again. And I think every time something does well, I’m like, ‘Oh, great! Alright, let’s do the next thing.'”

Now that she’s found that success — most recently in the form of a Mercury Prize nomination — she jokes that she’ll “always remember” the producers and writers who didn’t want to work on her first solo project. “There are people that have gotten in touch since, being like, ‘Do you want to do a writing session?’ and I’m like, ‘Hell no!'”

She laughs again, before turning serious. “I couldn’t have predicted this amount of critical acclaim. I really don’t take it for granted at all. I feel overwhelmed that I managed to create something that was so authentically me, and people have been like, ‘Yeah, we like that.’ In the U.K., [the Mercury Prize] is one of the big ‘uns, and it’s just a beautiful ending to that era and campaign.

“It’s kind of like the universe saying, ‘Stay true to yourself’ — especially going into the next record.”