Imagine living life as a successful entertainer, you have countless awards, platinum-selling albums, and you constantly sell out shows at every single arena. What could possibly go wrong? You have everything at this point. Money, power, and respect. Something a lot of people want but don’t have, so there’s nothing in the world that couldn’t possibly make you unhappy.
Well that, unfortunately, wasn’t the case for the Grammy Award-winning member of Destiny’s Child, Michelle Williams. Williams recently opened up about her struggles with depression and she revealed that at one point in time she was suicidal. The gospel songstress sat down with the host of CBS’s The Talk to update on her new love life and her plans for her solo career. With topics such as mental health, suicide, and depression finally being put into the forefront of discussions it was only right the When Jesus Says Yes singeropened up about her own experiences as well.
“At the age of 25, had I had a name for what I was feeling at the time, I would have disclosed that ‘I’ve been suffering from depression,’” she expressed. “I didn’t know until I was in my 30s what was going on.”
Williams added that she figured what she was dealing with was just “growing pains” as she was transitioning into womanhood. She explained that she’s dealt with her lingering sadness since she was a teenager and spoke about how ironic it was for her to feel this way while being apart of one of the greatest selling girl groups of all time. Additionally, Williams revealed that she opened up to the group’s then manager Mathew Knowles.
“And when I disclosed it to our manager at the time, bless his heart, he was like, ‘Y’all just signed a multi-million dollar deal! You’re about to go on tour! What do you have to be depressed about?’” she recalled. “So I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m just tired.’ I went to him but it’s kind of like, he could have been right at the time. I think he wanted me to be grateful, and I was, but I was still sad.”
Williams stated that it was important to her to discuss mental health and how real it is. Growing up in a church, she was told that praying away sadness was the best way to go.
“So it got really, really bad,” she explained.“To the point that I was suicidal. I was to that place where it got so dark and heavy because sometimes you feel like, ‘I’m the provider. I take care of people. I’m not supposed to be feeling this way. What do I do?’ I wanted out.”
Dealing with depression is a serious issue and it’s good to know that more and more people are being open about it and the stigma around it is slowly changing. We are so happy that Michelle Williams has found that light at the end of her dark tunnel, and we hope that this encourages more to people to come forward and be open about mental health.
Check out Michelle Williams interview with The Talk below.
