PERRIE Edwards has revealed she was hospitalised in Las Vegas in 2017 because she suffered a panic attack which was so bad that she thought she would die.
She pulled out of a performance at the time and reps said she had a “gastric problem” but she has said it was the start of her struggle with anxiety.
The Forget About Us singer explained: “I thought I was having a heart attack. And then I went to the hospital and they were like, ‘What drugs have you taken?’
“I was like, ‘Nothing. I haven’t taken anything. I’m a really good girl. I’m clean. I don’t even drink alcohol, hardly. But something’s happening to my heart. I’m going to die’. And I was having a panic attack.”
Appearing on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, she continued: “I flew home and from that point on, they just kept occurring all the time and I didn’t know what was happening. I thought I was literally going insane.
“I even asked my mum if she was going to put me in a mental institute at one point. Cause it was so bad. And I couldn’t make sense of it all in my head.”
The singer, who launched her solo career earlier this year, said she is now tackling it with the help of a therapist.
She said: “My therapist, bless her, I bring her with me to work sometimes because I literally can’t cope with the panic attacks.”
Perrie also said she could never return to the intense schedule which Little Mix stuck to, because it would be bad for her health.
She explained: “When I think about it now, if somebody put a Little Mix schedule down in front of me, I’d probably be like, ‘Forget it. I ain’t doing that. There’s no way’.
“I don’t think I physically, mentally could do it. But I think ‘cause we were on such a roller coaster of just everything at once, we would just ride in it and it felt normal.”
During her appearance on the podcast, the Brit Award winner went on to reveal her fears now are related to being alone, rather than being in front of crowds or fans.
Perrie said: “It sounds ridiculous because I even said this to my therapist. I’m like, put me on a stage in front of 100,000 people. I’m in my element.
“I will sing till the cows come home. I’m like, let me sing. You want another?
“I love it. I don’t mind interviews, I don’t mind TV. I don’t mind anything where I have to use my talent and my whatever that is, my stage persona. I’m chill.
“But in my day to day life, just get into the shops or go into, it’s like I catastrophize the normal things, which I find bizarre. It is strange.”
