'I fell and started scream crying and couldn't breathe.'
Meghan Trainor is opening up about a challenging point in her life.
The 26-year-old singer recently appeared on Zane Lowe's show on Apple Music’s Beats 1 and recalled having a panic attack on live television while announcing the 2017 GRAMMY nominations alongside Gayle King. The emotional moment came one year after she won the GRAMMY for Best New Artist.
"After Thank You, which was my last album... I met the love of my life. Everything was great. And I had vocal problems 'cause I was working too much," she said of what led to her mental health struggles when she "finally collapsed physically and emotionally."
"I had, like, a mental breakdown and I had panic attacks live on television with Gayle King," she continues. "I was reading the nominees for the GRAMMYs the year after I won and I was shaking and I was like, 'Please don't collapse on TV right now. We're live.'"
Though she made it through the live broadcast, Trainor said that as soon as they yelled "Cut," she "fell and started scream crying and couldn't breathe."
"And later, they took me away," she added. "I was supposed to do more work and they were like, 'We're done. This is it.'"
Trainor said that she was pushed to that point because of fears surrounding what canceling concerts and appearances would do to her career.
"I had a lot of people tell me, like, 'If you cancel on this 30-minute set, we'll never play Meghan Trainor ever again,'" she recalled. "So I had everything. I had my GRAMMY, I had what people dream of for years. I had everything I ever wanted, and they were threatening to take it away."
"So, my mind was like, 'No I'll keep going, I'll keep going.' And my body was like, 'Bye.' And my body had to tell me, instead of me being able to take a break," Trainor continued. "Like, the saddest thing is, like, your whole team is in the hospital with you like, 'Everything's gonna be OK.' And you... cannot speak. So I was alone with my thoughts for way too long and I blew up. I freaked out."
Following that experience, Trainor had vocal surgery as well as other "crazy things happening" to her, all of which led her to see a psychologist.
"I met so many doctors and I would just cry to them, and be like, 'It's something right here. Can you just fix it for me? Help me out,'" she said. "And finally I went to a psychologist and I said, 'My back is burning, like, as if someone's holding a torch to it. But I'm OK.' And he was like, 'OK, so what's happening is your chemicals are like this and we gotta get them back here.'"
"And he gave me two medicines that I take every single day and it saved me. Saved my life," she added.
During the interview, Trainor also discussed her new album, Treat Myself, which dropped last month.
"Trust my gut. Believe in myself," she said of the themes of the album. "... I try to write my songs that are like, treat yourself, remember to love yourself. It's all to me. It's also all to my fans, but I keep listening to these songs and I keep having to remind myself. Like, baby girl, love yourself."
When ET spoke with Trainor back in 2018, she revealed that Treat Myself helped her overcome her panic attacks.
"In the album, I tried to stay positive because that’s the only way I can crawl out of it personally," she said. "If I start thinking about it, [I can] trigger it. Like, I’ll start thinking, 'Well, what if have a full-blown panic attack right now?' then it literally will happen to me."
"... I wrote a song called 'Treat Myself' and it’s [about being] so proud that I overcame that and how I’m only going to be positive from here on out," she added. "I’m going to not forget myself in this crazy process of life. My therapist said to me, 'Dude, you came so far, don’t forget to reward yourself for that,' and I was like, 'Dang, more people should know that.'"
Watch the video below for more on Trainor.
RELATED CONTENT:
