Leigh Anne Pinnock Quotes

They can rip you bring you down, down to their size, but they will never get to the heart you hold inside.

Cause you gotta stay cool in the corner when the truth is that you wanna move

We were only teenagers. Still kids. But we had stepped into an incredibly adult world. There were pressures and responsibilities and we desperately needed to succeed.

I just don’t think that’s what’s happening, Leigh. I think it’s all in your head. You’re just as good, you’re just as loved.

And for anyone reading this who questions whether they should share their suffering, whether they should speak out – your pain is valid. Your feelings are valid. No matter who you are, no matter where you are in your journey. All of us should feel empowered to speak our truth.

me. I went through a phase of thinking I had to be the ‘sexy’ one, so I started wearing tight dresses and sultry makeup on stage and at events, but that wasn’t me either. This forced hyper-sexuality felt false and over-done.

almost wouldn’t have minded being sent home if we had shown them exactly what we could do and we just weren’t good enough, but I couldn’t handle being eliminated if we hadn’t lived up to our true potential yet.

confronted him and we ended up having a screaming match in the middle of the kitchen. I guess this is what happens when too many teenagers and young adults are left to their own devices.

Tulisa had to fight for us. She believed in us. She could see our talent, our drive, our hunger. She had our backs from the beginning and continued to fight for us throughout the entire competition.

This is not to say that I am completely against cosmetic surgery, we should all be able to do whatever we want in order to feel at our best, of course. But what I don’t like is the incessant pressure, the idea that there is one single body type, or one kind of face that we should all be aiming for. Our beauty is in our individuality, in the things that make us unique, that set us apart.

I’m so glad I never got that nose job. Today, I love my nose! I adore it. I can’t believe I ever thought I needed to change it.

there will always be voices telling me that I am not good enough, that I am not slim enough, not curvy enough, too old, too short, too frumpy, too slutty. The challenge is remembering how to love yourself despite all of these voices. The challenge is letting your voice be the loudest one in the room, the one you listen to the most.

didn’t occur to me to seek out a Black therapist because I didn’t even understand that the root of my sadness was inextricably tied to racial trauma.

show it in my love of animals, in the love I feel for my parents, my sisters and their children, and now with my own babies. It’s my small way of keeping her with us and making sure the legacy she built with this family is

The walls hummed with our energy, with our noisy ways of loving each other.

It hurt me, deeply, and it was intensely embarrassing – let’s not forget this was happening on live TV – but there was nothing to be done other than shrug it off and pretend it didn’t affect me.

But it didn’t matter how stressed it made me, how panicked I was, no one listened. My feelings about the matter were at the bottom of the pile.

Older Black people who had experience with the industry told me I would have to work harder, that it would be different for me, that it would be more difficult, that I would face hostility. I didn’t believe them. And back then, as a society, we simply were not speaking about these things.

I couldn’t define it and I couldn’t blame anyone else. So I blamed myself. I put it all on my shoulders and tried my hardest not to let it crush me.

They started to manifest as deep physical insecurities about things I had never even thought to worry about in the past.

never really went through that teenage phase of feeling bad about my body, or wishing I looked like someone else. I had this unquenchable confidence that originated somewhere deep inside of me and shone out of me like sunbeams. I would positively reinforce myself with statements like this, affirmations, all the time.

Why was there always this disconnect, this sense of uncertainty that I couldn’t figure out?

My family is a tough bunch. That’s how we have been raised. Our parents taught us to stand up for ourselves, to be strong and resilient, to go after what we want no matter what anyone says.

Home is comfort and familiarity, the knowledge that you will always be welcome, you will always belong. I often have to grasp that feeling

Even though we were such a big group of friends, there was rarely any drama. There was no bitchiness or nastiness, no one was ever left out or excluded.

They remind me where I come from; they remind me that I am loved and supported. I can’t tell you how many times I have needed them over the last decade. My female friendships are deeply, vitally important to me.

She told me that if this had happened in the real world, I would be the one going to prison because I was unscathed and the other girl was the one with the mark. ‘You have to understand what the consequences would be in the real world, Leigh-Anne,

was stunned. Hearing the word in that context caused a visceral reaction in my body, like a shiver of disgust and anger. I put my hand up,

This wasn’t the same girl who hid behind her dad’s legs when there were too many people in the room. This wasn’t the same girl who sang as quietly as possible with the backing track pushed up to full volume.

I don’t do love half-heartedly; I don’t play it cool or pretend I’m not bothered. And when I was a teenager, I was even more intense about it all.

understand when someone calls a relationship a ‘whirlwind’. That is how I felt: swept up in something beyond my control, half drowned in it, spun off my feet.

Why would I want to record a song with someone who had spoken about me behind my back? So he wrote a song about me, calling me a ‘slag’, saying I would never succeed, slating me in every way possible. He put the song on YouTube and it felt like every person in my area watched

want to laugh until my stomach hurts and my face muscles cramp up. That’s friendship, and that’s love.

That’s what I need in a partner. I never want to be with anyone who makes me feel like I can’t be silly, or real, or that I can’t laugh at the stupid things I find funny. I want someone who lets me be myself. And, above all, I don’t want any drama. I think I’ve had enough relationship drama to last me a lifetime.

I would visualise it. Visualise myself progressing. I had to see that it was possible. I had to believe.

We were still teenage girls, kids really, and despite the madness of the competition, we never lost our sense of fun.

His words felt like a turning point. Like a pinprick of light in the corner of my mind, helping me to finally see something that had always been there. At this time, I hadn’t yet spoken publicly about race. I hadn’t even come to terms with these issues in my own mind. I still had so much pent-up emotion, frustration and sadness

After she qualified, she got a job at a local school and her new teacher’s salary meant we could move to a bigger house. That work ethic and exceptional drive to get what she desired stuck with me. I absorbed that tenaciousness, that determination. Mum passed all of those qualities down to her daughters and led by example. But I also struggled with how work took so much of her time. I missed her.

there will always be a part of me that longs for home, that’s counting down the days until I get to walk through that front door.

Beyoncé has Sasha Fierce. I don’t have a name for mine, but she comes out the moment I step on stage. You are a queen. You are fierce. You are powerful. You are a queen. You are fierce. You are powerful.

I’d ideally be close enough to go into the capital for work, but it felt important to be able to leave, to have our family life away from the frantic pace of the city. I needed us to have space to breathe, to be close to the countryside, within walking distance of fields and woods and cows.

It always feels like home from the moment my foot hits the earth.

Part of it might have been to do with the stark lack of diversity at my school.

The kind of deep laughter that makes your belly hurt and your face ache.

was so far removed from our suburban existence in High Wycombe. It was intoxicating and glorious.

In Believe, Leigh-Anne shares her journey from growing up in a mixed-race family in Britain to taking the pop world by storm. Honest and direct, she reveals the challenges and prejudices that stood in her path, and how she overcame them by embracing her own power and choosing to believe in herself.

But we never felt any jealousy or resentment about not having the newest games or the coolest clothes, because we knew our parents were scrimping and saving all year to take us back to Jamaica