Jade Thirlwall tried to “capture a mood of Prince Harry”.
The 31-year-old singer and her Little Mix bandmates Jesy Nelson, Perrie Edwards and Leigh-Anne Pinnock met the prince – who married Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2018 – at the Royal Variety Performance in 2015. However, she was left completely thrown off when the rest of the group suggested they could find love together, as they were both single at the time.
Speaking to Nick Grimshaw on his BBC Sounds podcast Sidetracked, she said: “I was single at the time and all the girls were saying, ‘Oh, Harry. You could have a chance!’. I just thought, ‘Oh God, here we go.'”
“They were those kind of friends. And then he walked down the line and I started to get nervous.
“I wasn’t even scared, but suddenly it was like ‘The Princess Diaries’ in my head.
“I shook his hand and I think it was Jesy who said, ‘Ohhhh’. I said, ‘Not in front of the Prince of England!'”
“I’m all for wingwomen, but not in this situation. He must have thought, ‘What a nutcase!'”
Although she initially had no interest in Harry, the “Angel Of My Dreams” singer, who is dating Rizzle Kicks star Jordan Stephens, admitted that her bandmates’ teasing encouraged her to look for a spark between them and the prince.
However, there was no special connection between them.
She said: “I can’t flirt anyway, so there was definitely nothing like that.
“Maybe I held the handshake a little too long to sense a vibe. There wasn’t one. I wish him all the best.”
Little Mix went their separate ways two years ago and Jade, 31, recently admitted that she found it difficult to feel “relevant” afterward.
She said: “Little Mix was like a machine and there was so much pressure to be ‘great’. I had been programmed for 11 years to feel like I was constantly in the spotlight and so I’ve struggled to feel ‘relevant’ since I took a step back and people around me said, ‘It’s okay not to go to the opening of an envelope!'”
