Jade Thirlwall doesn't think she should have been allowed to compete on The X Factor because of her mental health

She told The Guardian newspaper: "In retrospect, if the show had done a proper mental health assessment, then they wouldn't have let me on. [The psych test] was very surface.

"Judging by some of the people in that X Factor house, it wasn't done properly. Bless them, through no fault of their own, some of those people were mentally unwell.

"All of the female contestants slept in the same bedroom, and one of them would get up, put all her wigs out and start doing a Britney Spears performance at three in the morning. Or you'd be woken up by the sound of her using her vibrator in the middle of the night.

"We'd have a meeting with lawyers and someone who was obviously not in the best headspace would be picking their feet and eating it in front of everyone. It was like, 'Is this the music industry?' "

The Angel of My Dreams hitmaker didn't realise until later that her eating disorder had continued during her time with Little Mix.

She said: "I didn't think it at the time, but when I look back at photos of periods when I was quite unhappy, I think, wow, girlie, you were very, very thin. The pattern was there. Historically, if I've ever felt that something is out of my control, then restricting food has been a means of controlling my life in a very toxic way.

"In summer 2017 I was living in a flat in east London and having really bad night terrors. I'd have such disturbing nightmares - things that are too horrific to say, dreams where I'd be harming myself - that I'd force myself to stay awake by drinking coffee and playing loud music. I'd be going to perform at outdoor concerts having not slept for days."

And even now, Jade has a "daily battle" with convincing herself she doesn't need weight-loss jabs amid being trolled online about her size.

She said: "I have a daily battle with myself not to go on Ozempic.

"I don't judge people that do, but because I have a history of eating disorders, I don't know where taking something like that would end for me."