Perrie Edwards may be a well-known pop superstar to most people but her own little boy isn’t quite so sure what his mummy does.
The Forget About Us hitmaker took to the stage in front of thousands at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball today, even performing an intimate acoustic gig backstage before for selected superfans.
She’s performed in arenas worldwide and scored numerous chart hits but her son Axel, three, has no clue what his mum does.
The Little Mix legend welcomed her son in August 2021 with football favourite Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
The tot has become quite the star himself, appearing alongside his mum in her home footage-style music video for new song Christmas Magic.
Perrie confessed to Metro that when little Axel was recently asked at nursery what his parents do, he declared she was ‘a dancer or something’ — oops!
She laughed: ‘He said, “Well, my mama, she dances or something and sometimes dances with other people too.” I was thinking, “Oh my God, he’s got it so wrong” but that’s fine, we’ll take what we can get.’
She did try and explain to Axel that she’s a (famous) singer but added he ‘doesn’t really fully get it yet’ — he remembered daddy is a footballer though.
Despite his confusion over her profession, Perrie grinned and shared he loved filming the music video and she can see him following in her musical footsteps.
‘He loves music so much, and he reminds me of myself when I was little, so like he sings himself to sleep,’ Perrie said. ‘He’s very music performance-oriented already.
‘Whatever he chooses to do, I’ll support it but I do love that he loves what I love.’
As for her own career, before the big concert, Perrie told Metro how excited she was to perform at the Jingle Bell Ball — especially in the intimate Barclaycard Out of the Blue set.
This short performance included her two biggest hits and Christmas Magic, stripped back in an acoustic set backstage ahead of the show starting, to a very small number of fans and competition winners.
‘I like intimate performances anyway,’ Perrie said. ‘I haven’t done like a proper acoustic set yet so it’s like my first one, so I’m excited for it, and it’ll just kind of be nice and wholesome.
‘Then obviously, in the evening, we’ll have the proper big show. So it’s like I’m getting the best of both worlds in one day.’
She confessed that she had anticipated ‘starting from scratch’ when she broke out as a soloist when Little Mix announced their hiatus.
Perrie said: ‘Your fans aren’t necessarily going to follow you as solo artists. I kind of prepared myself to maybe get different fans or not keep the same fans.’
Her bandmates Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall have also released solo tracks, each receiving huge hype from fans.
Perrie notes some of her songs, like Forget About Us, have a rock edge that she wants to explore further, which wasn’t so prominent in Little Mix.
Christmas Magic is very much not a rock track, leaning into ‘timeless’ festive vibes and debuting in the UK top 20.
‘I don’t think number ones are the same as what they were years ago,’ she shared. ‘I think if you’ve got a number one it’s amazing, but I don’t look at the charts or think it defines anyone as an artist.’
For the Shout Out To My Ex hitmaker, streaming has impacted the music industry so much that a number one is no longer a marker of success or popularity.
Perrie laughed: ‘I don’t really look into it much and with the Christmas number one, everybody wants it, so just let them handle it.’
That’s not to say she doesn’t want her tracks to do well, but this era for Perrie is more about fans ‘finding peace’ in her music.
She shared: ‘I just wanted to be true to myself, make music that I love, and then hopefully the people who enjoy it, enjoy it.’
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