During an interview with Essence, Missy Elliott opened up about battling anxiety and depression. She said, “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 sh*t. We all do. And it’s okay to say, ‘Hey, I’m not okay today.’ Probably we would keep a lot of people around if we were that open, because we would be able to uplift each other.”
She continued, “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.
She added, “I had a peer of mine say, ‘Hey, look, I’ve been through the same thing,'” she says. “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.'”
She also opened up about being an innovator, saying that she never went out of her way to be different, it's just who she is. She explained, “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.”
Missy continued, “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.”
