The 51-year-old 'Work It' female rapper encourages people to 'uplift each other' while she's reflecting on her long struggles with anxiety and depression.
- Jun 24, 2023
AceShowbiz - Missy Elliott feels OK to admit she suffers from anxiety. The 51-year-old rap star - whose real name is Melissa Elliott - is trying to be open about her struggles and thinks lives could be saved if more people had the same attitude.
"Now I'm fine with being like, 'Hey, I got anxiety' or 'I went through depression.' Even the biggest artist, or just the regular everyday working person, we all go through s***. We all do. And it's okay to say, 'Hey, I'm not okay today,' " she told Essence magazine.
"Probably we would keep a lot of people around if we were that open, because we would be able to uplift each other. We'd know that I'm not going to look at you crazy if you say, 'Hey, I'm having a rough day.' Maybe you're thinking things that you shouldn't think, or whatever the case may be."
"I had a peer of mine say, 'Hey, look, I've been through the same thing.' And he was just like, 'Next time I see you, I'm going to put a mirror in front of your face, so you can remember who you are and all that you've done.' "
The "Work It" hitmaker - who has sold 40 million records worldwide and is one of the best-selling female rappers of all time - went on to reflect that she was never trying to be "outlandish" as an artist and that she has always been "different" from her peers.
She said, "I was having fun when doing the videos. I never even thought, Let me try to do the most outlandish thing. That never crossed my mind, ever. It just spoke to who I was in school. I was always just different."
"So by the time I started doing videos, the music just really spoke to who I was as a person. And so I never thought, Hey, I'm going to do this, and this is going to change the world. It's going to change the way videos look. Or I want to do the craziest thing ever. Nothing seemed crazy to me."
