Leigh-Anne Pinnock suffered a confidence crisis after years of feeling she was being "overlooked".
Leigh-Anne Pinnock
The Little Mix star has admitted to lacking confidence and feeling like "the invisible one" in the chart-topping girl group because she was the only black girl in the band.
Leigh-Anne, 29 - who stars in Little Mix alongside Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards - explained: "I feel like I didn't believe in myself enough and that's from all those years of feeling so overlooked and feeling like the invisible one.
"But I think now, me speaking out and telling the world of my experiences and hearing other people relate to me and hearing other people's stories, helps."
Leigh-Anne previously spoke out about the racism she's encountered during her career.
And the likes of Normani - who rose to fame as part of Fifth Harmony - subsequently reached out to the pop star to offer her support.
Leigh-Anne told the BBC: "Even girls in other girl bands - Normani reached out to me when I put my video out about my experiences and it made me feel like I wasn't alone.
"Now I can own my power and I can be confident in myself. I wasted so much time not feeling like that and getting anxious before performances and meet and greets and thinking I wasn't going to get the same reaction as the [other] girls."
Now, Leigh-Anne looks back on her self-doubts with regret, but admitted she's still learning about racism and its impact in the music industry.
She said: "I wish I hadn't spent so long wasting my time worrying about that and I wish I could have just owned it then but you know what? We all learn and we all go on our own journeys.
"I'm still learning. We're all learning. We will trip up and we learn from it."
Tagged in Little Mix fifth harmony Leigh-Anne Pinnock