Leigh‐Anne

Leigh-Anne Pinnock (born 4 October 1991) is an English singer and actress. She rose to prominence as a member of the girl group Little Mix, which was formed and won the eighth series of, The X Factor UK. As part of the group, she won three Brit Awards and achieved 19 top-ten singles and five number one entries on the UK Singles Chart, before going on hiatus in 2022. In 2021, she made her acting debut in the film Boxing Day. As part of her solo career, Pinnock has released the singles "Don't Say Love" and "My Love" featuring Ayra Starr. Her third single "Stealin' Love" was preceded by the release of her debut EP No Hard Feelings on 31 May 2024, which reached number thirty eight on the UK Albums Sales Chart. In July 2025, she released her first single as an independent titled, "Been a Minute". Pinnock is noted for advocating for various racial issues and for racial equality, which earned her a National Diversity and Visionary Honour Award. Her documentary, Leigh-Anne: Race, Pop & Power (2021), received critical acclaim and was nominated for Best Authored Documentary at the 26th National Television Awards. In 2023, she won Musician of the Year and Breakthrough Artist at the Glamour Awards 2024. Early life: Leigh-Anne Pinnock was born on 4 October 1991, to black mixed-race parents Deborah Thornhill, a history teacher, and John Pinnock, a champion boxer, and was raised in a Caribbean household. Both of her grandfathers immigrated to the United Kingdom in the 1960s and entered interracial relationships. She lived in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, with her two older sisters Sian-Louise and Sairah. Sairah became her manager following Little Mix's hiatus in 2022. She has Barbadian and Jamaican ancestry and counts Jamaica as her second home. Before joining Little Mix, Pinnock worked as a waitress at Pizza Hut and used to post her music on MySpace and Facebook. Her early experience of organised singing came when she joined a youth club and choir then run by Jay Blades, who later became a trustee of her charity The Black Fund, which she founded in 2021. In 2020, Pinnock spoke out about the first time she experienced racism, at the age of nine, for a documentary that was later aired on Channel 4.