Chloe Bailey wants to help others with depression feel less alone.
During the Tamron Hall show Friday, the “Have Mercy” singer, 24, shared that she struggled with her mental health a few years ago.
“You know when you get stuck in that moment for too long and it feels a little too long being there?” Bailey said, and then confirmed to host Hall that she was speaking specifically about depression.
She continued, “It didn’t have anything to do with my career or my music, it was all personal internal things and I think when you figure things out that make you question your entire life, you look at yourself like ‘What did I do wrong? Am I good enough?’ things like that,” she said. “And for me, I used music to pull me out of it, my God, Mom and my family … all of them kind of helped lift me back up into better spirits.”
Thanks to her loved ones, including her younger sister Halle, 23 — with whom she rose to fame as the duo Chloe x Halle and released two studio albums — the star has been able to emerge from her depression.
“You have your ups and you have your downs,” she said. “It’s never going to be a steady course, but at least I feel confident enough in knowing this life is worth living for.”
The “Treat Me” singer, whose debut album In Pieces dropped last month, has been open in the past about adjusting to being away from her younger sister.
In an Allure cover story interview last year, Chloe recalled feeling separation anxiety while apart from Halle, who was living in London and filming Disney’s upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid, for six months amid the height of the pandemic.
During their time apart, Chloe worked on her solo album, and said that the creative process was a source of healing. “Music saved me,” she told the magazine. “I was at a low moment where I felt lost, like I didn’t have any sense of who I was.”
On Tamron Hall Friday, the star also shared that she is speaking out because depression is “greater than myself.”
“I want people to know, because I don’t want there to be a young woman or a young fella out there feeling alone like there’s something wrong with them because it’s not,” she said. “And especially right now with this generation and social media and everything all in your face and you’re comparing your worst self to everyone’s ‘fake’ best self, and with FOMO and things like that.”
She added, “If I could just help one person feel less alone and inspired to go talk to someone or lean on a family or friend … then I know I’ve done my job. This is greater than myself, and ever since I was young, I’d always pray to God like, ‘God I want to do this, I want to also inspire and help people,’ so while I’m helping and healing myself, that’s why I created this album. Because it was therapy for me and now I can use it to hopefully help someone else.”
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