Perrie Edwards has broken her silence on her previous relationship with Zayn Malik, who she was engaged to in 2013.
The pair were dating from 2011
The Little Mix member and the One Direction member were in a relationship from 2011 to 2015, having first met on The X Factor when they were both 17 years old.
They got engaged in 2013 but eventually split, with Malik starting his relationship with Gigi Hadid shortly afterwards.
Edwards had never spoken about it
Despite the publicly known relationship at the time, Edwards never discussed the breakup in interviews.
Now, in an August 19 episode of the podcast We Need To Talk, Edwards has broken her silence regarding the relationship.
She said it seemed easy at first
Talking about the relationship, Edwards began, “It was pretty easy at first it seemed and then I think it got more difficult, obviously, as it went on.”
She agreed that Zayn was her ‘first true love’, adding, “We were engaged to be married, so clearly we had feelings for each other.”
RELATED STORIES
She realized she was young at the time
Retrospectively, the artist added, “I think at that age, I thought, ‘This is it.’ But when I look back now, I’m like, Oh my god, I was so young.”
She went on to say she always finds herself in a tough spot when people ask her about Malik.
She feels people want to hear a certain thing
Edwards said, “It’s what people [want to hear about]. But then I would talk about it, and people would be like, ‘Shut up. We don’t want to know.’”
“Even just then, when you were asking about it, it made me feel a bit sick because it’s been installed in me to just not talk about it because I can’t win either way.”
She learnt a lot from the experience
Edwards spoke about the lessons learnt from the relationship, saying, “It wasn’t ideal. Definitely, at the time, I thought everything we experienced in our relationship was normal because it was my first relationship, first love.”
Edwards realized she should’ve felt better
“I was like, Oh, this is how it’s supposed to feel. It’s supposed to feel a little bit toxic in some ways. This is probably normal, right?” Edwards said.
“And then when I become single, I was almost thinking like, I never ever want to go through that again. I didn’t even want to meet anybody. I don’t think I could bear that pain.”
She recalled having struggled with it
“Heartbreak is so grim that I remember thinking, I’m done with men forever,” the singer said.
Edwards credited her fellow Little Mix members for helping her get through the tough time, saying, “I’d never navigated heartbreak, let alone having everyone criticize it in the public eye.”
The recovery was difficult to navigate
“I felt embarrassed. I felt weird. I was really sad. And it was just like going through all these emotions and going through it with everyone staring at me, it was mortifying,” Edwards said of the public eye.
