Perrie Edwards was "embarrassed" when she broke up with Zayn Malik

She recalled on the We Need to Talk podcast: "Tt was just a lot. ... It was too much. It was just everywhere. It followed me like a bad smell...

"I felt embarrassed. I felt weird. Really sad. Going through all these emotions and going through it with everyone staring at me was like, it was mortifying."

Perrie met Zayn - who went on to have daughter Khai, four, with Gigi Hadid - when she was competing on The X Factor as part of Little Mix and it was initially "refreshing" for them to bond over shared experiences but they battled to keep their romance out of the spotlight.

She said: "This was early days. It was all very new for them as well.

"I think meeting someone at that time in your career who's kinda at the same point is kinda refreshing. It's like, 'Oh, you get it.'

"It was pretty easy at first, [but] it got more difficult as it went on."

The pair deliberately kept their relationship out of the spotlight as much as possible.

Perrie explained: "I think part of us keeping everything private was because it was nice to have something private in general. Everything else was just laid out.

"I think we didn't want to ... I felt bad for the girls because a lot was made to be about him. It was the start of our careers."

The Forget About Us singer "learned a lot" from her relationship with Zayn but it led to her taking some fears into her current relationship with fiance Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the father of her three-year-old son Axel.

She said: "I think it maybe [thinking a romance can't be sustained] comes from past relationships and how the other person's handled it. Then you just assume, 'Oh, nobody's going to want this.'

"So [I] think maybe my previous relationship made me think, 'Oh I probably can't have my cake and eat. I probably can't be a popstar and have a relationship.' It's one or the other.

"Reflecting back, I'm thinking, 'Oh, that probably wasn't good.' And I've noticed it a lot.

"Like in the start of the relationship, I would handle things differently with Alex, and he'd come at it with such a level head that it would throw me."