Pop star Perrie Edwards has shared one of her most honest accounts yet of her past relationship with former One Direction member Zayn Malik, opening up about the emotional aftermath of their very public breakup. During an appearance on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast, the former Little Mix singer reflected on the difficult period and confirmed for the first time that there was some overlap involved when the relationship ended.

"I need to be careful how I say this, but there was, let's just say there was a bit of a, I'm just going to say it. So there was a bit of an overlap," Edwards revealed. Speaking about how the split affected her, she explained how painful it was to feel like she had been left behind. "I think when you're moving on with somebody else, you always get on better. When you're the one left behind, that's when it's hard. Because it's like, oh shit, they've left me for someone more beautiful than me, someone better than me. Whatever it is, that's how it felt at the time."

The situation became even harder as events continued to unfold in the public eye. "Then you have a song that they've written about you. But then someone else is in the video. It was one thing after the other, after the other," Edwards recalled. She went on to describe the moment everything became overwhelming while she was living at her home in Surrey after stepping away to gain some space. "I just remember finding out about that and it was like the nail in the coffin and I thought this is all getting a bit much and then I started crying my eyes out and then my dad started crying... I'm like you can't nobody can this is hellish like, what is going on."

Looking back now, Edwards said the experience ultimately changed the way she views relationships and helped her recognize the difference between an unhealthy romance and the stable relationship she now shares with fiancé Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. "It made me realize that that was very unhealthy," Edwards reflected. "I think now that I've experienced what healthy love is. With Alex. Yeah. It's so nice it doesn't make you feel sick to your stomach all the time it doesn't make you feel icky it doesn't make you feel like you're not worthy or you're not good enough... It doesn't feel competitive it doesn't feel Toxic."