Hayley Williams Speaks Out About Suicide, Depression, Grief and Therapy
Hayley Williams opened up about her mental health struggles that inspired her upcoming debut solo record.
In a new interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, the 31-year-old shared her experiences with mental health, suicidal thoughts, depression and grief and how those feelings transferred into her music.
Almost losing her grandmother to a terrible fall, the accident caused "prolonged grief" for her and her family. "It felt like there was a lot of death at the time… I just thought, 'What is the point of loving people? Why?' she questioned. "Even in the best-case scenario is I fall in love, we have a life together, and then we lose one or the other. The more you love the more you stand to lose."
Lowe then brought up the subject of suicidal thoughts after he admitted that he has had them himself. She agreed that she has had those thoughts as well, "Yeah, pfft, oh yeah," she admitted.
The host then asked what keeps her moving forward after thoughts like those. "During After Laughter [Paramore's most recent album] it was really rough," she shared while tearing up. "My dog is the reason I'm alive because he would've been waiting on me to get home, no matter what." Williams admitted that this was the first time she cried in an interview.
"So I just couldn't," she continued. "I'm glad, life is still hard. It didn't become just a breeze overnight or anything and it's been years and it's still not a breeze, but it's so rich and now that I'm taking account of all these feelings and I'm feeling all of them, there's this beautiful rainbow versus just the deep end." She then credited therapy as what helped her understand these feelings.
"I had the hardest time being angry while we were writing After Laughter and I clearly had a lot of s--t to be mad about," she said, seemingly referring to her divorce from ex-husband Chad Gilbert, her grandmother's fall, and the departure and lawsuit from former-Paramore band member Jeremy Davis. "But I was depressed. And I think often depression is masking other more pointed feelings," she concluded.
Petals For Amor debuts on May 8.