Roughly three years after Fifth Harmony went on an indefinite hiatus, original member Ally Brooke is opening up about her time in the girl group. In the inaugural episode of the 27-year-old singer’s podcast, The Ally Brooke Show, the eponymous host shared details about her time in the sensational pop group. “It was a whirlwind,” Ally shared of the group coming together in 2012 on The X Factor and skyrocketing to stardom.
“I’m going to say how proud I am of Fifth Harmony, of what we did, of what we did for music, what we did for female empowerment, what we did for girl groups,” she reflected. Unfortunately, Ally’s appreciation for what the group accomplished was overshadowed by her difficult experience. “But I hate saying this: My time in Fifth Harmony, I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t love it,” she confessed.
“It was hard because there was so much going on,” Ally continued to explain. “So much behind the scenes, so much toxicity, so much abuse, so much [abuse] of power, so much mental abuse, verbal abuse, and it’s just horrible and to me, it’s a shame because we were so big. I should have enjoyed myself more.” The original group consisted of Camila Cabello, Ally, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane Hansen, and Lauren Jauregui.HollywoodLife has reached out to the former group’s previous label for comment. Ally went on to open up about how the situation became so difficult to live with, she sought out help from resources within the label. But Ally’s requests were allegedly rebuffed and Ally explained that the women were often made to feel “inferior” and “uncomfortable” during that time.
Now that Ally has had some time to separate herself from her years in the group, she’s still trying to come to terms with her experience and how the women navigated their fame at such a young age. “There’s a weird balance of being grateful and being okay with the fact that things were not okay for me,” she said. “It was traumatizing.”