Michelle Williams Talks Feelings of Depression and Suicidal Thoughts During Destiny’s Child Era
Mental illness and the importance of mental health is often topics that aren’t talked about enough in the black community. There is still a huge stigma around these conversations and a lot of important discussions are never talked about because of it. This week, Michelle Williams visited the CBS talk show The Talk and got really candid about her battle with depression during a time in her life that fans would probably be surprised to learn about.
Known as one of the three singers in the R&B all-girl group Destiny’s Child, Williams revealed that it was during those years that depression played a major role in her life. Williams did not know that depression was what it was at the time, but recalls dealing with depression for over a decade. According to her, she “just thought it was growing pains. I just thought I’m turning into a woman. So I’ve been suffering since between the age of 13 and 15.”
The 37-year-old “Say Yes” singer was at what many would perceive as the highest point of her career – and at one of the lowest points of her life mentally and emotionally. The former Destiny’s Child member tried to talk to her feelings with her then-manager, Mathew Knowles.
“For years, I’m in one of the top-selling female groups of all time suffering with depression. It got really, really bad…to the point of I was suicidal,” she said. “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 want out.”
Williams believed that things felt so grim for her because she had to internalize a lot of her inner turmoil as opposed to having somewhere to release her tolls in a healthy way. She brought her experience up during her interview out of hopes of normalizing mental health discussions and conversations.
“I just kind of want to normalize this conversation just as much as we normalize ‘girl is my butt too small? I wanna make it bigger,’” she added.
The World Health Organization reports that over 300 million people are battling with depression around the world. 6.8 million people (that’s about 16%) of the black population in the US have been diagnosed with a mental illness within the past three years alone – Mental Health America reports.
Watch the interview in full here.
Photo Credit: PR Photos
