Perrie is the latest Little Mix star to launch her solo career with the release of her debut single, Forget About Us.
Co-written by Perrie with Ed Sheeran, David Hodges and Steve Solomon, the track is a euphoric re-introduction to the chart-topping star as a solo artist and a celebration of relationships gone by.
“I look back on past relationships and do think happily about those times,” Perrie says. “Do I want to be there now? No. It didn’t work out that way and if it was supposed to be it would have happened.
“Relationships have been a huge part of my life and they’ve made me who I am now. I think it’s a nice sentiment to be honest about and it’s super relatable.”
Alongside the single, a music video for the song was directed by Jake Nava and shot in Cape Town, South Africa.
Listen to Perrie’s new single, Forget About Us, and watch the music video below.
In a new interview, Perrie admitted she wasn’t initially keen on writing material for her solo record. “I was just so insecure, I think, I was just so shy,” she shared. “And it’s really a drastic change when you go from being in a girl-group and having your girls constantly with you holding your hand – I was literally the baby [of the group].
“And it can be quite overwhelming when there’s loads of people in a room and you’re supposed to be talking about your feelings and your emotions and what you want to put in a song.”
Revealing she told her team “I don’t want to write anything – I just want to be sent songs”, Perrie added: “I remember watching the Whitney movie [‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’] and she would sit in the office and say, ‘I like that, I don’t like that.’ That’s how I imagined my music career going.
“But then they were like, ‘Why don’t you just try some sessions with friends and people you’ve worked with in the past that make you feel comfortable?’ Like Jin Jin – I’ve known her forever and would never feel judged by her in the room.
“So the more I did sessions, the more I became confident [and] the more I was writing down lyric and concept ideas. And then I started taking the reins a bit more and it just kind of spiralled from there.
“There’s only a handful of songs on my album I haven’t either co-written or written so I’m very proud of [going] from one extreme to the other.”