Rochelle Humes has said she was made to feel as though she had "messed up" after becoming pregnant at 23 while a member of pop group The Saturdays, describing shame and pressure to hide her pregnancy and return to work quickly.
On the Ladies Who Launch podcast, Humes, 36, said she felt she had "let everybody down" by starting a family during the band’s success and compared concealing symptoms to having "a hangover." She recounted feeling she had to hide sickness and carry on performing despite being pregnant and, later, shortly after giving birth.
Humes said she returned to media appearances and performances very soon after the birth of her eldest daughter, Alaia. "I remember having a single, five weeks after Alaia was born and I was on Lorraine and Good Morning Britain doing a performance and I remember my boobs leaking and I was squeezing myself into my Spanx," she said. She added that, at the time, she feared the pregnancy would "ruin" her career and therefore continued working rather than taking more time to rest and bond with her newborn.
Reflecting on that period, Humes said she now wishes she had allowed herself to rest and adjust to motherhood. "Now when I look back, I almost feel annoyed with myself, but I don’t think I really understood the impact of having a baby and what that meant to me and how I should have just let myself rest and getting my head around the whole experience," she said.
Humes, who married former JLS singer Marvin Humes in 2012, is a mother of three. The couple share daughters Alaia Mai, 12, and Valentina, seven, and a son, Blake, four. Humes has frequently featured her children on social media and in promotion for her inclusive children’s haircare brand, My Little Coco.
The Saturdays formed in 2007 and ceased activity in 2014; members at the time described the end as a "break" rather than a formal breakup. Humes’s account adds to broader discussions about the pressures faced by young women in pop acts who become mothers while maintaining high-profile careers.
Humes also addressed the physical and emotional toll of juggling early motherhood with the demands of television and live performance, saying the experience felt like trying "not to be pregnant, even though everybody knew." She said the expectations around image and youthfulness within the pop industry contributed to her feelings of shame and a sense that she had tainted the band’s image.
Her comments come amid ongoing media coverage about past tensions involving former bandmates and associates. Publications have reported a dispute between Humes’s former colleagues Myleene Klass and Frankie Bridge; a source speaking to The Sun has alleged Humes supported a friend following a relationship breakdown and that that involvement prompted upset. Those reports have not been independently verified by Humes’s representatives.
Humes continues to work in television and business ventures and has been public about family life on social media. Her recent public appearances and holiday photos have drawn attention, but her podcast remarks underline the career and personal trade-offs she said she faced as a young mother in a commercially successful pop group.