Method Man Shares His Struggles And Journey With Depression
Rapper and actor Method Man is often in the news for how young he looks, but this time, he’s opening up about depression. In a conversation with fellow artist Fat Joe on his new Starz show Fat Joe Talks, Method Man shared how he deals with depression.
“The point I’m trying to make is every now and then when you get a thought like, ‘Damn, I wonder what this person’s doing,’ act on it,” said Method Man. “Call them, see how they doing or find some way to get in contact with them. It never hurts. You have no idea how much that could mean to them.”
The conversation then shifted to depression and how he manages it. “It never really goes away,” he said. “You have, like I said, I have bouts with it and things.”
Method Man, whose real name is Clifford Smith, talked about the importance of showing love to your friends and family, mentioning how a message from someone close to him really made a difference. “And Dave saw that, and he just sent me a beautiful text message… and it spoke to me, big time,” he said. “And all I could put was, ‘All of this,’ with a heart emoji. I don’t even get heart emojis son but yeah.”
Method Man also opened up about his struggles with depression in an interview with Men’s Health Magazine in August 2023. He explained that he began battling depression and unresolved PTSD during the peak of his fame in the 1990s. “It went from this childhood joy to this euphoric feeling of celebrity to feeling inadequate and not good enough. That’s where the depression and stuff came in,” he said. “And not even knowing that I’ve been depressed since I was a youngster. A lot of PTSD I had never dealt with before started resurfacing.”
He said he learned to cope by changing his circle of friends and working on his mental health. He also began seeing himself in a more positive light. “It had nothing to do with other people. It was just me. ‘What can I control?’ That’s what I did; I took control after that. I stopped valuing other people’s opinions, and instead of being my biggest critic, I became my biggest fan,” he said.
Method Man isn’t the only rapper speaking out about mental health. DaBaby has launched a mental health platform in memory of his brother, Glenn Johnson, who died by suicide in 2020. Announced during Suicide Prevention Month on September 26, DaBaby’s initiative, DaBabyCares, aims to “raise awareness, dismantle the stigma surrounding mental health, and provide essential resources for both youth and adults facing mental health challenges.”
