Little Mix’s Leigh-Anne confronts fiancé over tweets about dark-skinned women

The singer is being praised for holding her fiancé accountable.

Little Mix star Leigh-Anne Pinnock is being praised for confronting her fiancé over historic colourist tweets he wrote back in 2012. In Leigh-Anne: Race, Pop & Power, which aired on the BBC yesterday, the singer addressed the time when her fiancé Andre, who plays football for Watford, tweeted offensive comments about dark-skinned women. The documentary explores Leigh-Ann's own experience with racism in the music industry, she met with other stars like Alexandra Burke and Keisha Buchanan to discuss the issue and broke down in tears after admitting she felt "invisible" due to her skin colour. The documentary also deals with the issue of colourism and Leigh-Ann admitted she felt sick when old tweets resurfaced from her fiancé. In a tweet from 2012, the Watford striker compared dark-skinned women wearing red lipstick to, "burned toast with jam on it". Leigh-Ann confronted Andre in the documentary saying, "I will never know what it feels like to be a dark-skinned woman but seeing those tweets really made me feel a bit sick," she added, "I was really upset because I was just like, 'Who is this person? This is horrible." Offering an explanation for his behaviour, Andre said," This is what happens when you're kids and that. You do become a product of your environment." He added, "There's no excuse at all, when it all came out and stuff, like obviously I was embarrassed, ashamed, disappointed, at the same time... I had to be a man about it."

"I've made that mistake and I've learnt, and I've educated myself and grew up to understand how offensive and how wrong it was what I did. There was never any malice, but again, no excuse."

Fans took to Twitter to show their support for the singer and praised Leigh-Ann for bringing up the issue, one fan tweeted,"'Honestly big up Leigh confronting Andre about his tweets, holding Andre accountable for them tweets here for it" another said, "Leigh-Anne called out and held her fiancé and father of their child accountable for his problematic and hurtful tweets. Use this as a teachable moment, yall cannot be silent and watch ur friends and family be ignorant and discriminatory towards people!!" Just last week, Leigh-Anne announced that she was expecting her first child in a stunning photoshoot. "We've dreamed about this moment for so long and we can't believe the dream is finally coming true," she wrote in her caption. "We can't wait to meet you."