By: Angelica Bastien

**Trigger warning: depression, suicide**

In recent years, Kid Cudi has focused more on his work as an actor including his latest role in Vincent-N-Roxxy which recently made its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival. But he’s coming back to his musical roots with a feature on Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo album and his own new music coming out soon, which Kid Cudi discusses in an interview with Billboard. While Kid Cudi may seem to live a charmed life, in his interview he details how he has struggled with depression.

The interviewer asks what he attributes his current happiness to. Kid Cudi answers honestly that it has to do with giving up the drugs he used to treat his depression. In 2010, he was arrested for cocaine possession and criminal mischief.

While he’s incredibly honest in his Billboard interview about the effect his depression has on his career and self-care, it isn’t the first time he’s opened up about depression. As far back as 2013, Cudi spoke about his struggles with depression and drug use. Given the stigmatization of mental illness within the black community, Cudi’s honesty is more than commendable, it’s a necessary step in addressing these issues. The more people who open up about living with mental illness the less this issue will be stigmatized, in and out of the black community.

While Cudi is shown to be much happier than he has been in the past, a series of tweets this month paint a different picture. Cudi details how hard it has been for him to deal with depression, ending by noting that he thinks about suicide often. Cudi tweeted, “I think about blowin my brains out a handful of times a week.” Recently, singer Kehlani publicly expressed her experiences with attempted suicide. It is clear that being in the limelight can greatly impact the mental health outcomes for anyone but this is especially worrisome for young people of color.

This level of vulnerability on such a sensitive subject isn’t usually seen by pop culture figures in the black community or even in real life. But hopefully, Cudi now has the support necessary to find balance in living with depression.

 

Photo credit: Facebook